


Empathy (Overhauled)

by hikaxan



Series: Empathy [1]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII (Video Game 1997)
Genre: Action & Romance, Action/Adventure, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Cid and Reno cussing, Eventual Romance, Explicit Language, F/M, Hojo (Compilation of FFVII) Being An Asshole, It's All Hojo's (Compilation of FFVII) Fault, More dream squences than I would normally be comfortable with, Original Character-centric, long chapters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-16
Updated: 2020-11-30
Packaged: 2021-02-07 10:10:28
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 38
Words: 303,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21456331
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hikaxan/pseuds/hikaxan
Summary: He never planned on waking up, on leaving his prison. He had chosen to sleep as his penance. Then someone woke him. She was seeking the truth, in answering her questions Vincent realized that his penance had done nothing for the world. Soon they would join the ranks of a rag-tag group of rebels on the trail of Sephiroth, he in order to put down Hojo for good, she in the hopes of seeing the Silver Haired general again.*Next update Ch: 39 ummm... I dunno, life is taking up time and effort right now.My current outline suggests that this will be around 42 chapters.... wait, I've been working on this for a *year* now!? /faintsMy husband doesn't think this warrants a "Graphic Depictions of Violence" Tag, I'm not sure it does either. But it's on here since what constitutes as "graphic" varies from person to person.This is a rewrite of one I wrote back in 2002 (link in notes, but please don't read it)
Relationships: Vincent Valentine/Original Character(s)
Series: Empathy [1]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546723
Comments: 33
Kudos: 75





	1. Fragments of Memories

In the dark he slumbered, but his nightmares never struck him suddenly. It wasn't the kind of nightmare where the object of your fear could be around any corner. It was the ever present lurking kind of despair. The nightmare where there is nothing he can do, where you can only watch your friends make the choices that will lead to their end. He was the one in the shadows, watching her suffer, watching Lucrecia fall deeper into an abyss that she could no longer see her way out of.

Sometimes he would try to talk to her, but his voice would not come. Other times he was in a specimen tank, yelling while green astringent liquid filled his mouth. On the few rare occasions where she did listen, it was too late, Hojo was right there. Hojo was always there. Smirking in the other shadows across the room, a pair of reflective glasses and a mad toothy grin.

The Others were there too, creatures and beings that Hojo either created or summoned. Spirits of monsters bound to him, grafted into his flesh and his soul. All unwillingly as far as he could tell. They mostly stuck to the shadows to watch this theatre of cruelty. One of them had a dark sense of humor, one was mostly indifferent, but the other two closest to the surface didn't like it. They all shared the pain.

Too few were the bright moments, what things were like before she turned away from him. But they were always shattered by what came after.

She was angry. The gunshot. He was laughing. The scalpels. She was sad. The injections. She was horrified. The radiation. She was crying. The popping of his own bones as he shifted for the first time. She was miserable.

All of it, because he did nothing. Because he couldn't bring himself to disobey orders and do the right thing. He didn't do what he had wanted.

***

The chocobo sensed the oncoming creatures moments before its rider. She quickly dismounted and drew her weapons, the large bird stepped back, giving the woman room while remaining alert.

She drew the fencing blades, a side-sword and parrying dagger. She was still nervous about fighting on her own, though she felt some relief seeing only a pair of the small frog-like creatures. She smirked and dove into the fight, grinning as her chocobo got a hit on a third one that tried to surprise her. These creatures were smaller than the ones that chocobo had to learn to defend themselves against, so she was confident her only companion could manage it.

After dispatching the last of the beasts, she went to the bird and patted it on the neck, shaking her red hair out of her face. "Good girl, I'll get you some of those nice grasses you like at the next town, k?" The chocobo cooed happily, which then turned into a chirp of alert. The fencer turned in time to see a massive throwing star come her way. She shoved her bird back and felt the breeze of it pass closer her face as the star looped around and cut through the trees.

"Nice Dodge," Came a female voice from the shadows under the trees, "But do you think you could do it again?"

"You almost hurt Iris," the redhead said unhappily. The woman in the clearing stretched out all of her senses, trying to determine if the voice was alone. The weapon came around again, she ducked and parried it. Now that it was flying off of its intended course, its wielder leapt out of the trees to catch it and landed in front of her. "Nice jump," she said, weapons at the ready, green eyes studying her lone opponent. A Wutai girl with short hair, cropped sleeveless turtleneck, shorts. Some kind of guard covered her entire left arm, and another covered her left thigh making that side difficult to attack, but it also marked a weakness.

"Nice parry," she grinned back. "But you're still going to give me your materia." The fencer was surprised, but tried not to show it. The young woman was a bandit, and probably younger than herself by a few years.

They circled each other slowly, the fencer feeling out her opponent. She was confident, but unsure… of the robbery? She was a little desperate for some reason, she probably didn't want to hurt anyone. Before the red head could think about how to talk her down the shuriken came flying at her again.

Dodging and going in for a lunge, the ninja jumped over the blow, catching her projectile on the way. The older woman suppressed a wicked grin as an idea came to her. It had been a stupid trick when she had used it before, but it might just work here. After several rounds of blocks dodges and parries, both fighters were panting and only had some minor scrapes to show for it. "You're good," she smirked.

"Yeah, you too," the bandit replied.

"You forgot something though." She was pretty sure the ninja was close enough…

"What's that?"

"Sit girl!"

"What ar- oomph!" The ninja suddenly felt two massive scaled feet on her back and shoulders and found herself pinned to the ground, by a mass of pale blue, warking feathers. The redhead smiled, she never imagined training her bird to sit on her annoying ex-boyfriend would be that useful. "What the- hey! Nnghh, no Fair!" The raven haired girl looked like she was trying to do pushups.

"Fair?" the swordswoman asked, moving the dropped weapon away with her sword. "You're trying to rob me in the middle of the woods."

"If it wasn't for your bird you never would have beaten me!"

"Probably," she wasn't really sure, but she felt playing into the girl's pride was the better move. "But at this moment, you are beaten." She knelt down, now holding the star over her own shoulder. The ninja glared at her. "If you promise on your honor not to attack me or steal my stuff I will let you up."

The younger woman struggled for a bit more, until breathing started to become strained, "Ok fine!"

"Fine what?"

It came out as a grumble, "I promise that I will not attack you or steal your stuff if you let me up… on my honor"

She grinned, "Ok, easy up girl." The bird gently let up, eyeing the person she had just sat on. "I'm Ralena," she said, offering her hand to the other woman.

"Yuffie," she said, taking the hand. While she brushed herself off the ninja examined the fencer. Button down white shirt under a black, lace-up vest, green pants and riding boots that stopped short of her knee. She also wore a pair of bracers and shin guards that were made of some kind of monster hide. Something about the redhead's green eyes wasn't quite right. They reminded her of something she couldn’t quite place, and it looked as though she could see more than she should.

"So where are you headed?" the ninja asked

"Nibelheim," the redhead replied.

"Ugh, why would you go there!?"

"Why not?"

Yuffie shrugged, "I dunno, maybe because that place is CREE--PY!"

She laughed at the Ninja's description, "I have some old business I need to take care of." She handed over the ninja star and moved to mount up.

"Going already?"

"I need to get to the next town by dark," she smirked, "You never know what kind of dangerous people could come out at night."

"Ha ha," Yuffie said dully before perking up, "Hey I know, why don't you join me? I bet between the two of us we could take on most people, then we would be rolling in materia."

"Sorry, not for me," the red head replied, she felt a little bad, the other woman was lonely and she got the feeling they would get along.

"Awww, come on!" Yuffie moaned. "Two bad ass chicks, kicking ass and taking materia. Doesn't that sound like fun?"

Ralena grinned as green eyes faded to a more natural hazel color, "Trust me, I just wouldn't feel right."

The ninja ended up walking alongside her for a little while, before they parted ways Yuffie asked about her eyes changing color.

Ralena turned to her, surprised she had noticed. "I got a case of Mako poisoning a few years ago," she lied, "sometimes when my adrenaline is up they change. Can't afford to pay doctors to tell me why."

She wasn't sure the ninja bought it, without the real reason being active, it was much harder to read people. But, they weren't fighting anymore, so it would just be rude to do it now. They parted on friendly terms either way and she continued on.

Her thoughts wandered as she continued on her journey. She hadn't brought anyone else in on this. Why would anyone else care? The only people she was really close were to were her blade master, and the farmers she had boarded with. While she cared for them as friends, there were things about herself she never told them. Truthfully claiming to be an orphan, and falsely claiming to have poor memory recall. They may have cared for her, but not her mission, and she wasn't likely to tell them why. It left too many questions that she wasn't ready to deal with until she had her own answers.

Besides all of that, they were happy staying home, and she wasn't about to force them to come along.

It was another two days and she was finally there.

Nibelheim.

Five years of training and preparation had brought her here. Five years of getting a handle on her abilities, how to handle a chocobo, trying to get information from those stupid fan clubs, learning to fight, discovering her limit break.

Appropriately, that had done it. Not everyone could perform limit breaks. Few knew why. It seemed that most could gain it through enough training and determination, and a little trial by fire. Her master knew that she wanted to be able to defend herself, to fight and survive. When she came to the village in the back of a farmer's truck from Midgar they could all tell she'd had it rough before. But she never said why she needed to leave. And he never asked, he simply trained her as long as she was willing to learn and work for it.

Once she proved her limit break wasn't a fluke, her master had decided that she was ready. She knew he wouldn't have let her leave if he thought she would die, but he also knew she wouldn't have waited much longer.

It had taken her a long while to find out that this had been the location of the mission. His mission. Her source, someone going by the handle "Black Suit" had said that this was the last in his file. A mission where "Due to an unfortunate Mako Reactor incident" the SOLDIER had perished.

She was going to find out if it was true. There was also the fact that over half of the document was redacted, it just didn't smell right. That kind of thing didn't happen to a SOLDIER first class, never mind TWO of them.

She dismounted just outside of the town proper, having already ridden past a few small farms. At the gate her eyes flickered green for a moment, a brief image of four men, then a young woman running off. Thanks to her… upbringing, one of her talents was being able to catch glimpses of the past. Fuzzy moments with gaps in them, like old damage recordings.

There was something strange about this town that she couldn't quite put her finger on. After what Yuffie had said about the place being creepy maybe it was just human instinct speaking to her.

As she walked in towards the inn she saw the first of them. A huddled, cloaked figure opposite the inn next to a rusted out old truck. It rocked slightly and quiet words were uttered from its lips. Even without seeing its features, something about it horrified her. Despite her better judgement, she edged closer to hear what it said. "Must go…" it wheezed, she almost took it for a warning but it continued speaking as though she weren't there. "Go re… union… he's cal… calling."

She recoiled from the figure, certain that this was something she didn't want to know about. She stabled her chocobo, checked herself into the inn and went to get lunch. The strange vibe of the town never left her senses.

When she asked the server about life here, she had almost jumped to tell her. Like she had been wanting to spew out her story for ages, even if it wasn't that interesting. It felt like an actress who finally got to go on stage when the lead actually broke her leg.

After lunch she meandered around town like a tourist, making a point to avoid the cloaked figures. Within an hour, the town wasn't that big, she made her way to the large abandoned mansion on the north end of town. As she walked towards it another cloaked figure she heard it speak mournfully. "Hear… his voice… the gr… great." A pale hand came up to touch the its own face. She found herself stepping back in stark horror. In the movement she had noticed two things, a glimpse of white hair and the numbers "003" tattooed on the back of the hand. After taking a few more steps back she looked over the town, eyes wide in disbelief.

"Experiments," she whispered hoarsely.

All of the people in robes had been experiments. There were so many of them here. Easily a quarter of the people she had seen were wrapped up in such a way, and there were likely more indoors…

The realization had sent her into a minor panic. Her abilities made her an empath, she could feel other people's feelings and to a lesser extent, project them as well. It was always on like a sixth sense, that was why this town had her so on edge. She had control, but that had been practiced in a farming village, sparsely populated with only occasional trips to the nearby Kalm. On her travels she noticed that it had been harder in the more concentrated settlements to keep everything out, and she had rushed through them as quickly as possible. If she opened up in this town it would definitely be a trial by fire. She gritted her teeth, she was sure it was the only way she would get the truth.

She calmed herself, and tried to think through it logically. The mansion was far enough from the rest of the town that she should be alright, she realized, her range was barely twenty-five feet. A quick glace into the yard showed none of the robed figures within it.

She could do this. She would do this. She was here to find out the truth, and seeing it with her own eyes was the only way to be sure. Steeling her resolve, she jumped the wall and walked up to the front doors. The outside of the mansion was not as dirty as she would have expected. Clearly someone was at least paid to maintain the grounds. The door was locked, but the damaged glass panes in it made that easy enough to get around.

She opened the door and stepped in. Unintentionally, her powers kicked on and she was thrust into a maelstrom of emotions and memories. Split second flickers of a thousand moments crashed about her and clouded her vision. Holding her head she tried to look around, looking for a constant. The layout was the same in all visions, the windows, the stairs… there! Stumbling like a drunk, she dodged ghosts and went through a pair of doors to the side of the foyer. Once in the room she pulled a white cloth covering a grand piano. Her hands touched the keys, and discordant notes filled the air of the once silent mansion.

Her hands flew across the keys, pure chaos at first before pounding out an unwritten song that seemed to put the emotions in order. It was offkey at first, but soon it told her a story in emotions.

Loss.

Guilt.

The hope of forbidden love which turned to fear then flowed into betrayal and revenge. Misery, regret.

An interlude mystery in a time when few things happened, followed by the joy and shame of a return home, followed by curiosity, a realization building to utter insanity.

For a moment she was sitting in the same place as someone else, someone who once used this same instrument while on the brink. A man lost between the reality he thought he knew and the facts put before him. Struggling with the words 'monster' and 'human.'

As the music came down from a crescendo, she caught the sound of something behind her and threw herself from the bench barely avoiding being sliced in half by some bizarre creature that hung from the ceiling with a giant crescent blade instead of legs. It must have been drawn into the room from all of the noise she was making. She dodged several more swings, barely nicking it on each pass. Finally it passed again, and she managed to time a jump and made it lose its grip on the tether it used to hold on to the ceiling. While it struggled to grab the chain she delivered a deathblow to the creature.

She shook her head and looked at the mess she had made, focusing on the details in order to help get her mind under control. Looking at one of the papers she cocked her head and read it. A patchy image of a man in a lab coat came to her mind, only able to make out the smirk and a vindictive sense of humor. "…I scientifically altered him and put him to sleep in the basement," she murmured, reading some of it aloud "If you want to find him, then search the area. But... this is merely a game I thought of." She was disgusted, that someone would do this. Unfortunately, she also wasn't surprised.

She looked at the clues on the other side of the sheet. Someone was locked downstairs? Could someone have already found him? Given the aged condition of the paper and the dust in the mansion it was pretty unlikely. Could they still be alive? She knew the madman in charge of ShinRa's science department could probably be do it. Even so, how long could someone last in such a condition?

It wasn't what she was here for, but she didn't like the idea of someone being trapped, and probably dying slowly. She decided to check on the victim first.

Heading down to the basement first, she planned to use her empathic sense to see if she could feel the person on the other side if she could. She knew what a sleeping person felt like, but she was unsure if the thick walls would prevent her from sensing him. Locating the locked door, she opened up her mind.

She should have known better.

A wave came from the library at the end of the hall. Pacing, reading, a slow constant slide into insanity. Black boots, white hair and green cat like eyes. "Sephiroth," she whispered hoarsely. There was also spikey black hair and concerned blue eyes. The other SOLDIER, Zack, he felt helpless, this was a problem he couldn't smile at or beat up. Both had been here. She knew they had come here. But she wasn't ready.

She closed her eyes tight, hand against the locked door and tried to focus on was what she was trying to feel for. The now, someone was here _now_. Someone just beyond her hands.

He was in there and sleeping, wallowing in misery, regret and self-disgust. This whole place was filled with so much pain, tears found their way down her face. She struggled to shut her powers off, with a heavy exhale and a frightful glance down towards the library, she went back up the stairs to try and get the sleeper out of his nightmares.

To get the answers she wanted she would have to go into the library. She knew that she was putting it off. She wasn't sure she was strong enough for that space right now, another day probably wouldn't matter, not really. Perhaps the sleeper would have some answers for her…

Even if he did, she'd still have to see it herself.

Strange creatures inhabited various corners of the mansion, and while she was able to avoid many of them, she still had to fight a few to find the numbers to the safe. It was rough going, but at least her cure and barrier materia were getting a work out.

As she went to reach for the safe, she got a sense of something again. That sadistic smirk, it was eerily familiar, a "prize" left for whoever opened the safe. Deciding it was best to be prepared, she stopped to heal her wounds, drank an ether and arranging what little materia she had for a single opponent.

Bracing herself she cast Barrier, put the code in, and was shoved back halfway across the room as the massive bi-colored monster burst from its confines within the safe. "How the hell did you fit in there!?" She immediately let loose with the Bio spell, before unleashing a flurry of attacks with her blades. She did her best to dodge the magic and attacks aimed at her. But the purple half of the beast hit like a truck, after breaking her barrier, it only took two hits for the creature to bring her to her limit break to bear. "Payback's a bitch," she muttered, suddenly rushing in, easily hitting as hard as it did with several blows in rapid succession. She followed up with a lightning bolt and a refresh on Bio. The creature shed half of itself that fell to the ground in a disgusting fleshly lump.

What was left charged up, "oh hell," and hit her with a powerful magical fire spell. Quickly she cast two cure spells on herself before casting another lighting spell… which seemed to do less than it should have. "Dammit." A suspicion came upon her, the other half had done physical damage… She struck it again, and this side didn't seem as tough. She was somewhat relieved, her magic output wasn't nearly as good as her swordsmanship.

Dodging around the room to buy time, she managed another lightning bolt, before it struck her twice more. 'Well, at least Payback returns the favor,' she thought as she winced, bringing her limit to bear once more, this time a hail of fireballs and a few lightning strikes like the ones used on her, struck the creature. When the smoke cleared another bolt came out at her. She barely dodged magical blast, she didn't have time to cure herself again. She went in for another strike of her blades, panting and frustrated that the beast still stood. "Oh hell, would you just DIE already!?" she cursed. Taking a moment to watching its movements, she timed her next attack as it was gathering it's magic and rushed in, stabbing both blades under its wide mouth. She felt the magic fade from the air and she backed up with a sigh of relief. It fell to the ground as a gelatinous, steaming mass.

Singed and exhausted she finally took the time to fish an ether out of her bag and downed it to restore her mana reserves. Wincing at the taste, she used the healing magic on herself again before going to the safe. A broken jar, probably the creature's origin, a book that made no sense to her, she left that, some gil, "taking that," a red materia, "A summon I think, nice," and a key. "Whoever is in the basement better be grateful for this." She would use the mending materia to fix her clothes later… before she went back to the inn.

Making her way back down the stairs again she cast another look down the hall to the library. This time she heard voices from the past.

"_Talk! Why di- you -et this ha--en?_" Horror, anger and sadness.

"Silence." Annoyance and hatred.

"You!" 

"Silence!" She jumped as the sound of a gunshot rang through her head. She saw someone fall back on the ground, flickering in and out of view. Black hair and a suit. A few footsteps and then the voices began to start to cut in and out. "_Why -an't these peop-- just keep quiet… Yes … next ex--riment… Geniu-_"

She forced the vision out when she heard the laughter. She didn't need to hear that. She never wanted to hear that laugh ever again. Clutching the key tightly, now more than ever she wanted to rescue the person on the other side.

Too bad she would find him less than willing to cooperate.

****

He was lying face down on the ground, his life pouring out of his chest, courtesy of Hojo and a bullet. The madman laughed over him. He had learned long ago that no matter how many times he saw this moment, how many times he lived it, the pain was still there. Less than it had been in reality, but present nonetheless.

Clenching his fist he tried to pull himself up. He lifted his head and stopped.

Down the hall, behind Hojo, he saw one of The Others. A horned purple beast stepping out of the shadows and looking up, cocking it's head at an unheard sound.

Someone had found him.

****

When she first opened the coffin, she was surprised to find such a young looking man inside. Red eyes opened and he sat up, taking a moment to look at her from behind a large red collar and long locks of black hair. To her annoyance, his first response was, "You have woken me from my slumber." She decided to let it pass, judging from the dust in the room he must have been here for years, and that probably made him groggy. He looked at her, as though his eyes needed a moment to focus. She noticed a claw-like brass gauntlet on his left hand while he briefly he studied her face. "I don't know you… you must leave."

Well that was quick. "Excuse me?"

"You should leave, I have nothing to say to strangers."

She huffed, "Oh, I'm sorry, I thought I was saving you. I had to fight some freakish monster to get the key to this room. The least you could do is give me a good reason why you don't want to come out." She knew she was more rude than she should have been, Ma Telly would never have let her hear the end of it.

"This mansion is the beginning of a nightmare."

Great, he wanted to wax poetic, for some reason she felt as though it was better to leave him to do what he wanted, after all it was his life. She resisted the urge to shake her head. She knew this isn't how she would normally feel. This entire town, and this house especially, had her all messed up, even with her trying to keep her abilities shut off. So many powerful negative emotions. "Yeah well, that's the story I want to know."

He noticed the rips and singes in her clothes, it seemed she had been through something to get here. Perhaps he could humor her for a short while. "I doubt I can help you."

Well, if she got her question out maybe he would listen. "I'm hear trying to find out what happened to Sephiroth and Zac-"

"Sephiroth?" That was a name he hadn't expected to hear.

"Yeah, it took me years to find out their last mission was in this town. The coverup is so massive it feels like the whole village has been replaced. It feels artificial except for those creepy people in robes just hanging around the street." She noticed him staring at her, the intensity made her uneasy but for some reason his curiosity was piqued.

"What happened to Sephiroth?"

"Officially, he was KIA 5 years ago. ShinRa made a huge deal about it. You woulda thought he died saving orphaned fur seals, while flying a ShinRa flag and shooting rainbows out of his eyes," these were things everybody should know. "How long have you been in that box?"

"Sephiroth was a child, a baby, when Hojo locked me down here."

She looked into the man's striking red eyes, thinking about the 'game', and the long sleep, "Yeah, this does seem like that bastard's style."

He straightened up at her response, "Hojo is still alive?"

"Trust me, I keep an eye on the obituaries for him." she replied flatly, "He's still alive and stickin' people with needles."

"Do you know of Lucrecia Crescent?"

"No, should I?"

"She used to be a ShinRa scientist that worked in the lab here."

She shook her head, "I don't know her, Hojo and Hollander are the only names I really know from my time there."

She looked uncomfortable talking about it. For now he decided not to ask for specifics… After all, he would send her away soon and none of it would matter.

"Why do you want to stay here?" she asked, realizing she never got an answer in the first place.

"I let the one I loved, the one I respected most face the worst." His gaze fell from her face, "I stood by and did nothing. That is my sin."

"… and you're atoning by sleeping."

He raised a brow and it disappeared under the red cloth wrap around his head.

"You're paying the price for doing nothing… by doing nothing," she said out loud, trying to see his logic. He did not reply, there were other factors she did not need to know.

They remained like that for a few uncomfortable seconds before he asked. "Why are you looking for Sephiroth?"

She turned and sat on another box in the room. "He used to be a hero, ShrinRa sold him as THE hero, the ultimate SOLDIER. And one day he goes off on a mission with another SOLDIER, Zack, and none of them come back, due to an 'unfortunate Mako Reactor incident.' -pff- it's bull." She looked him in the eye again, not at all bothered by their unnatural color. "I am going to find the truth." It was a stupid thing to do, after just setting foot in this building she knew she wouldn't like what she would find. But now she was here, talking to some morose coffin dweller in a basement. Probably just delaying the inevitable: discovering the real truth and having her hopes shattered.

"Why?" he asked again.

"…I have my own reasons," she could be obtuse too, "I met him before. It was nothing like most people would expect. I believe he wanted to leave… before I came here I thought ShinRa may have killed him for trying."

"And now?"

"Now I don't know. But I have a bad feeling that when I go in that library down there I'm going to find out something horrible."

"Project S and the JENOVA project."

"Huh?"

"Those are the files you will want to start with."

Her face softened somewhat at his attempting to help, even a little. "Tell you what," she said standing, "I'm probably going to be here a few days reading up on some of that stuff. Before I leave, I'll check on you again, and if you want to stay, I'll leave you be, ok?"

He nodded, "Very well." That said he laid back down and replaced the lid.

_Boy he's weird_, she thought, _but isn't everybody after Hojo?_

She looked down the hall, a feeling of dread in the pit of her stomach, and then a rumble from the same part. "I guess I can come back tomorrow." She laughed at herself and went to go get dinner and some sleep.

That night she woke up, and found the room burning. She jumped up, throwing the blanket off of herself before realizing there was no heat. She looked and saw that the furniture lit by the fire was different than what was really there. Blinking, the fire came in and out in her vision. She looked out the window and her vision waved over the town, wreathed in flames, and then not. An image of a girl in a cowboy hat running up the mountain path thirsty for vengeance.

She shut her eyes and focused on forcing the memories out, she focused on her body, here and now and the sensations she felt. The carpet under her feet, the chill of the room, the moon light she could see with her own eyes. In seconds the visions dispersed, but it would be a long while for her to return to sleep.

"_Cloud! Hey Cloud, it's time to wake up. Come on man we gotta get going._" Grumbling she rolled over to a fading vision of now familiar black hair and blue eyes of Zack. Dammit, this place wouldn't even let her sleep in a little. She must have slept in the same bed as this Cloud person.

Oh well, she had a lot of reading to do anyway…

***

From inside a glass Mako tank, he had seen Lucrecia collapse. Clutching her stomach, she cried and apologized weakly to the baby. She was late in her pregnancy at this point. He tried to move, tried to speak, tried to shatter the damn tank through sheer force of will.

Nothing happened.

Lucrecia continued to cry. The familiar sound of it was soon joined by mad laughter and a second crying voice, echoing from down the hall.

The most animal of The Others showed itself again, looking at him from the doorway beyond Lucrecia's prone form, and then up. It was a moment before he realized that some of the sounds he was hearing were coming from the waking world.

Crimson eyes opened and he took a few seconds to confirm the sounds were indeed real. He had vaguely awoken a few times before and found that the sounds of his Nightmares often lingered for a short time after he awoke like echoes. After a few more moments of consideration he pushed the lid of the coffin off. The door to his chamber had been left open and he heard the sounds coming from out in the hall. It was a strange mix of crying and hysterical laughter. Knowing that woman was here, he grabbed his gun and went to go check to see if she was safe.

He found her in the library, kneeling and crying. Several binders and folders scattered on the floor around her like they had been dropped or thrown. He looked around, wondering about the source of the laughter. Soon he heard it come from her throat as well, it disturbed him how much it sounded like Hojo's. He heard her mutter the word "genius," with a familiar intonation as the laughter bled back down into sobs again.

He knelt down in front of her, barely within arm's reach, "Are you... Ok?"

Eyes looked up through her hair before her face turned up, he saw that they were strange. Now a brilliant shade of glowing Mako green, pupils dilated more than they should be in this well it room. Tears were streaming down her face and she looked as though she was possessed, her lips occasionally quirking up as though trying to smile wickedly. She reached forward and grabbed his claw so fast he almost struck her out of instinct. "You… you're real right? You're here?"

He nodded, and then, realizing that she might need more confirmation than that replied verbally, "Yes, I am here."

"Can.. Can I focus… on you?"

Again he nodded, and offered his right hand, hoping she would release her grip on his left. She took it in both hands and squeezed. He was surprised that it actually hurt. He watched with concerned curiosity as she took long, deep breaths. After quite a while she stopped shaking and she had managed to gather herself. When she opened her eyes again, they were hazel like they had been when he first saw her. "Sorry about that, I thought I could do this alone, I… I wasn't ready for..."

"For what?"

She had the sense to realize that she should explain, though her voice was tired. "I'm an empath, I have.. I can feel outside emotions. And not just those of people, but the imprints left on places… and… this place is just… it's just too much." Realizing she still held his hand, she let go and sat back, still on the floor.

"How do you-" he started. "Of course…"

Hojo. It must have been a side effect of whatever he had done to her. He was sure that it was something unintended. Hojo cared little for something as mundane as emotion.

Needing to get it all out of her head she began to speak, not worrying about whether or not he cared. "Sephiroth found some of Hojo's notes, about how he had been created. He went insane. He kept saying that he and his mother would find the Promised Land and take the planet back."

"His mother? Lucrecia?"

She looked at him confused and still a little dazed. "Luc-? No… Jenova."

Vincent stood and turned away from her, walking to the nearby table and resting his hands on the back of a chair. "That _thing,_ Jenova, is _not _his mother," He said icily before his voice softened. "His mother was a beautiful woman named Lucrecia. The bastard didn't even tell him his real mother's name…"

Ralena suddenly remembered one of the voices, _"Give him back! Give me back my son!"_ She shuddered, feeling a mothers loss without ever having known the joy. She did get a little relief though, knowing that Sephiroth had a human mother meant something, no matter how small.

"He was always told his mother's name was Jenova," she said again, "When he found out Jenova was a… a Cetra," she swallowed at the word bitterly, "He decided they should get rid of the humans and reclaim the planet."

"Jenova was not a Cetra," Vincent said, his back still turned to her. "Professor Gast realized that and left to go find out more about the real Cetra and what Jenova really was. By that point Hojo didn't care."

She took a moment to process this, that information must not have been kept here, at least not at the time, otherwise Sephiroth would have seen it. She took another deep breath and maintained her focus on keeping the memories away from her sight. "Sephiroth locked himself in here for days in a row reading the research. He went insane, burned down the town and murdered a lot of the people. Which means if he was killed it was… justified." She choked on the words. How could he have done that? How could he have just slaughtered dozens of innocent people? It didn't make any sense to her. Sephiroth had been a SOLDIER, he'd had honor and a stupid amount of self-discipline. What had been done to him that this would make him snap?

She heard a creaking sound, and for a moment thought she had failed to keep her focus. Then she realized that it wasn't a memory in her ears. 

The creaking was Vincent's hands squeezing the back of the wooden chair and cracking it.

He had let this happen, he stayed locked away and let Hojo continue with his madness. He thought about Sephiroth, about that girl in front of him, about Lucrecia... In the last two decades how much more damage had he done? The woman was right, how could he expect to repent for doing nothing, by doing nothing?

He straightened up and turned to face her. When he spoke, his voice was quiet, even and deliberate. "Where. Is. Hojo?" A quiet seething rage had boiled up through the dark clad man's outer visage. Ralena hadn't noticed given how she'd been fighting to stabilize herself. But even with her metaphorical eyes closed, she could feel the rage coming from the man before her like a hot desert breeze. His face showed little of it, though there was a set look in his eyes that spoke of action rather than self-pity.

"All I know is that he still works for ShinRa, and is still their head a-hole of science, last I checked. Why? You want to ruin his day?"

"Very much so."

She looked down again, "I wasn't planning on going after him, I… I don't know if I could face him," she visibly shuddered at the thought of being in the same room with the man. "I have heard of an anti-ShinRa group called Avalanche. According to the news they’re terrorists, and collapsed the Sector 7 plate in Midgar, but ShinRa owns the news… I don't know what kind of people they really are. If we track down them or another Anti-ShinRa group they wouldn't mind a few motivated extra hands." She'd heard of some Wutai resistance groups, but she don't imagine many of them would take on outsiders, so didn't think it was worth mentioning.

"Any idea where to find one of these groups?"

"No, but I bet if we head to Rocket Town we might be able to dig up some information. The people around here are too busy playing dumb. I think they're supposed to watch the cloaked… people."

"I will join you, at least as far as Rocket Town."

"Ok," She stood up and had to take a moment to balance herself. He reached a hand out to help steady her but she waved him off. "I was planning on stopping at the Mako Reactor on the way through the mountains, is that alright?"

He nodded.

"Do… Do you need anything?" she shook her head, "uhh… I need to get out of this town."

"I have few possessions," he stated, "It will only take me minutes."

"Ok, we'll get your stuff, walk out of here then I'll go get my stuff from the inn and meet you at the chocobo stables, the blue one is mine." She gave an almost pathetic laugh as she suddenly remembered something. "By the way, my name is Ralena."

"Vincent Valentine."

On the way out he was curious about why she stopped at a piece of paper in foyer. He didn't bother to look, but on the paper announcing Hojo's little game she wrote the code to the safe and the words "found him" on it.

***

Naturally, he got to the stable before she did, he was examining the azure bird, and it him. He had always been more familiar with mechanical forms of transportation. He hoped that Ralena had not intended for them to both ride it.

He was surprised to see the town that had popped up in the shadow of the mansion. It was not that large, but none of it had been here when he was active. The cloaked figures were also strange. It was a little unnerving to him that he could feel one of the Others within him stirring at their presence. If they caught the attention of one of the creatures within him, then there was definitely something wrong with them.

"Oh hey," she said walking in, both the man and bird turning to her, "You beat me here." Her voice was breathy, as though she had just run a mile… and of course he beat her here, they walked passed it as she went to the inn. Vincent watched her movements as she put the tack on the blue chocobo. They were less sure than they were in the mansion, shaky and weak. Not like the sure fighter he saw in their few encounters on the way out of the building. Adrenaline could work wonders. He realized in that moment that he did not know how long it was between the first and second times she woke him.

She wanted to cry again, get it all out, but she had to hold on to her own emotions right now. If she didn't, if she let these outside feelings overwhelm her again she wasn't sure how long it would take to recover. She just had to hang on a little longer, they were on the way out. Then she could- "When did you last sleep?"

She jumped at the voice and then looked at him. "Sleep… or sleep well?" she asked back. "This place has been awful to me the past three nights, but don't worry, I'll manage and pull my own weight."

She went back to her task, pointedly making her movements more steady. But they were still strained. He considered his new travelling companion, for the moment he would act as though she was weaker than he believed. At least until she got some proper rest and away from this town.

"Vincent?"

He looked up and met her green eyes to show he was listening.

"On the way up. I might be a little touch and go, I'm having trouble turning my senses off. I can follow the scent of insanity that Sephiroth left behind years ago."

If he hadn't personally known what kind of extreme changes Hojo's experiments were capable of inflicting, he might have thought her mad. Though she did appear to be on the edge. He recalled seeing her eyes dull to a more normal shade. Clearly the Mako glow was an indicator of her abilities, and he hadn't noticed it go away since they left the mansion. "Why don't you sit and recuperate? I can finish tacking your chocobo."

She shook her head, "No I have to get there before he does, I have to aven-" she winced and closed her eyes. "There's no one to avenge," she whispered, "That wasn't me…"

He walked over and placed a sympathetic hand on her shoulder. He knew too well the weight of the past. "It is years past, Ralena. I doubt 5 minutes will matter."

She looked up at him, sweat forming on her face and eyes hazed over with a strange sort of desperation. Days of fighting this and pushing herself had worn her ragged.

"I know the way to the reactor, it is not necessary to needlessly torture yourself to get us there. Sit down and take the time you need to shut it off."

After a few seconds she nodded and patted the bird, and it nuzzled her hand. "Vincent is going to finish you up, ok girl? I'm just going to sit down." She sat on a bench in the stable and focused on the now, pushing everything else out to a background haze.

A few minutes later Vincent led the chocobo out of the stable and the now hazel eyed redhead was ready to head out. "Shall we go find out what happens in the next act?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This first chapter is really OC heavy, I know. But there is only so much I can do with Vincent before he wakes up.  
Also this is the first thing I am post on Ao3, so let me know if I missed any tags :)
> 
> Why?: TLDR - watching random videos on FFVII lore made me read my old fanfiction and "Oh My God, what was I thinking!?" and I challenged myself to re-write it better.  
My personal challenge: Keep the basics of the story the same, including the Original Character, and make it better, not just better. Make it GOOD.
> 
> I wouldn't recommend reading it, unless you want major spoilers, but the Original work is here: https://www.fanfiction.net/s/812852/1/Empathy
> 
> Longer reason why:  
Wait. What?
> 
> Oddly enough this did not come about because of the pending FFVII remake. It's actually Savage Worlds' fault. I was working on a Villain for our weekly RPG game, who I was pretty much Hojo as an alchemist in a fantasy setting. And looking for a little guidance I started poking around YouTube and found a video about Lucretia's story (spliced together from Dirge of Cerberus), so then I watched one on Sephiroth Story and the one on Vincent (from Final Fantasy Union channel).
> 
> For some reason that made me want to read my old fanfiction and Oh My God, what was I thinking!? This is AWFUL, some of the parts are good but the original character I made is a borderline Mary Sue, there's not enough screen time from the others, the whole plot seems to take place over 2 weeks, there are info dumps nearly ever chapter. And WHY does she have amnesia? Where did the romance even COME FROM?! (hint no romance, just suddenly they are into each other)
> 
> Then I remembered why it turned out the way it did. (other than I was in college)  
I didn't have a plan other than to follow the plot of the game.  
I think I wrote the whole thing in less than a month and when I had new ideas I just dumped them into the next chapter rather than worrying about any sort of narrative or flow.  
Never mind her mood swings (which to be fair she is an Empath, and I was in college at the time, so there is that too…)  
UGH! It was so bad.
> 
> New goals I had for this version (these will be put at the end of various chapters when they are no longer spoilers)  
•Ralena needs more motivation then "I'm and adventurer" style curiosity.  
•No amnesia for her. Oh god, the number of times she got more memories back through dreams or dying or whatever. If I have learned anything from watching Arrow, it's that people keep secrets.  
• I want to keep the essence of the plot together  
• Highlight Vincent more, -Yes I have an OC in there… but he's with her nearly the whole time. Plus he's awesome.  
• Less Cloud bashing, watching the Crisis Core Cinematics (3+ hours on youtube WOO!) made me realize how F*cked up Cloud really was. What with all of his visions and mental lapses and… wait a minute, did I just make a female Cloud as my OC? F*CK! I really did just put all of the stuff I didn't see in Cloud into her…


	2. Five Years Ago

Within an hour of leaving town, Ralena seemed to have her head together again. On the way Vincent discovered that, while not a full-fledged combatant, her chocobo, Iris, was at least an asset on the battlefield. Her intimidating size and dull, yet massive claws kept several of the smaller creatures at bay while they cleared out larger beasts.

Despite her fatigue, his new travelling companion seemed to handle herself quite well. As a fencer there was a gracefulness to her fighting style, he was close to calling dancing. She clearly enjoyed combat, and it seemed to help focus her. She also had a talent for assessing the monsters they came across.

Like a biologist, she could see the parts and put a purpose to it. Linking those purposes to attacks and weaknesses, sometimes she had to see it in action first, but given repeat encounters with the same species it was useful information.

At one point, when sleek flying beasts were divebombing them with energy attacks. She had been able to determine where to strike in order to stop the creature from doing it again. When he asked her about it, she had claimed to have been a monster hunter before travelling to Nibelheim.

It was good for him that she was a melee fighter. While he disliked the idea of letting others take hits for him, she, with the assistance from her chocobo, kept him from getting hit too often.

Which was good for her.

At every impact he could feel one of the beasts within him growl. It was the most animal of the Others within him, the horned creature that Hojo had called the Galian Beast. He gritted his teeth, momentarily remembering the feeling of a Hojo scraping the bone on his forehead.

"Are you ok?" she asked, looking back at him. He noticed her eyes fading to Hazel.

His eyes narrowed slightly at her.

"Sorry," she said. "When something spikes like that I can't help but notice, and it's not like it would be anyone else. Do you need a break?"

He shook his head, "We can rest before once we arrive at the reactor."

"Ok then," she said, a thin veil of concern joined the emotional fatigue in her expression, but she said nothing.

That was one good thing about the woman he was traveling with, even without her strange senses activated, she knew when he didn't want to talk, and so far, respected his wishes.

As they made their way through one of the caves, Ralena realized that many of Vincent’s movements were oddly… ethereal. It wasn’t obvious when he was doing slower motions like walking, but running across the battlefield, climbing down, and jumps made it noticeable.

There was just a hint of floating, like a ghost. It seemed his hair and cloak settled just a little bit slower than it should have. She also thought that he managed to be quieter than he should be, especially with those giant metal sabatons on his boots. On one of the climbs down, he jumped the last five plus feet and landed with barely more sound than she had with her softer soled boots and a shorter fall. 

When they were outside reactor, having lunch, Vincent assessed his own condition while eating a sandwich she had purchased in town. He hadn't really had much waking time since being locked in the basement. Aside from a brief visit from Veld, he hadn't even left his coffin, much less the room. He should have been at least suffering from fatigue or atrophy. But there was none of that. He had barely felt hungry, and had taken the sandwich silently more out of politeness than need. He imagined that he would have to eat as long as he was active, though maybe not as much as a normal person. 

He didn't imagine that she had the same level of endurance as he, but the woman didn't seem as winded as he had expected. While he could see few signs of fatigue in her, he imagined it was more from lack of sleep and her… abilities than physical exhaustion. "We don't know how well the reactor has been maintained, we need to be alert inside." He said eventually.

She put on a stubborn face, "I _need_ to know what really happened. I have to see it myself."

He didn't understand her desire to know on such a level, but he was curious to find out as well. So he didn't bother to dissuade her, for the time being, he would just make sure she just didn't get herself killed. "Let's make sure it is safe first, after that you can look."

They made their way into the reactor, many of the massive pipes and catwalks were coated in rust. It was hard to tell at a glance what was sturdy and what would crumble under their weight.

They found a room with a dozen Mako chambers stacked in three rows and a door with "JENOVA" written over it on a giant plaque. Vincent noticed her stiffen and thought she was seeing visions already, but he quickly realized that her eyes were not the tell-tale glowing green. She stared at the pods with an expression of familiar dread. A look he imagined he would have at seeing at a surgical room. Subconsciously flexing his left hand, he felt a pang of sympathy for this seemingly unstable woman standing beside him. Given the results of Hojo's experimentation on his body, true stability was something that was not within his reach, either. It wasn't the first time he saw similarities in their paths, and he did not look forward to finding out what other dark memories they had in common.

Staring at the Mako chambers Ralena had to force herself out of her own thoughts of the past. The sight of those blasphemous eggs brought back too many memories of the lab she knew for so much of her life.

After taking some time to gather herself she considered how to go about her task. This was going to take some time if she didn't want to overload like what happened back in town. Perhaps she could ease it on and off, she wouldn't get anything in order anyway, and if she could stem the tide that would be easier to handle.

With a quick warning to Vincent she aimed her thoughts towards Sephiroth and the past. Oddly, this was not as bad as the mansion. While all of the emotions here were strong, they at least came from different directions. The mansion was nearly all some kind of insanity, cruelty, or sadness. At least here there were some people trying to do right. A black haired SOLDIER with valor in his heart, a blonde troop with a desire to protect, a teacher who saved his student, and a young woman who learned to hate. There was also a hint of a desperate man and black feathers.

She saw a blonde infantry man cradling the badly injured girl with the cowboy hat. She saw a vat open, a strange humanoid being collapsing out of it. She saw Sephiroth's realization, him carrying a strange purple head, the thought that he was created in some vat. It overlapped with visions of the black haired SOLDIER, Zack, being thrown down the stairs, Sephiroth stabbing the girl, the black haired SOLDIER running up the stairs. A man in a red coat with white streaks in his auburn hair, holding out a purple apple with a mocking tone in his voice. She narrated the fragments together, working with Vincent to try and put them in order. At one point she suddenly stopped, a sour expression on her face, "Tch…"

Vincent gave her a questioning look. 

"Of course Hojo would turn up afterward to scavenge test subjects from the survivors. The blonde troop and Zack… The girl's not here…" She looked up the stairs at the room labeled JENOVA, "Shall we see the next part of our tragedy?" she gestured. She shook her head, "Sorry, one guy had a flair for dramatic speech…"

He was about to insist that she give it a break when she walked into the door that had been open in her vision. "You should get your bearings first," he suggested. Laughing at herself, she agreed.

After a few minutes, he figured out how to open the door. It wasn't locked, but it was rusty and stuck. She almost stepped in, but he grabbed her arm, she looked back at him confused and he gestured to the floor in front of her. Blinking the green out of her eyes, she realized that she had almost stepped into a fair sized hole in the platform. "Thanks," she said, then gave him an appreciative nod.

She saw the blonde, Cloud he had been called, pick up the Zack's sword and stab Sephiroth while he was distracted. There was scattered images of the black haired SOLDIER yelling at him, "_Why!?_" being the predominant theme. The whole scene had a strange undercurrent to it, but with everything else she barely noticed it and couldn't be bothered to figure it out now.

She made her over to the platform and large broken chamber at the other and of the room and from there saw Sephiroth talking to his "mother" the strange desperation in his voice and eyes broke her heart. She reached out and felt him, his conviction, his need. A bizarre sort of hopelessness that came with giving up everything he had lived for before that moment. "_I've had an epiphany, mother._" He felt lost, like he didn't belong anywhere, and Jenova was the only one who would embrace him.

"Idiot…" she whispered. Vincent looked to her for the out of context comment. She blinked the tears away. It wasn't time for that yet. 

Following the vision of Sephiroth with Jenova's head back out, they found themselves at a catwalk over a pipe. Then she saw it, the moment. The blonde held Sephiroth aloft with his own blade and threw him against the wall, where the machinery exploded and he fell down into the Mako bit below.

She slumped to her knees. "He… he really must be dead," she said in a hollow tone, her eyes dulling. She looked at the charred markings on the wall where Sephiroth had hit, never cleaned. Vincent walked to the edge of the machinery and looked down into the glowing Mako pit far below. It would be possible, he thought, but not with the injuries she described.

"I didn't want him to be dead," she whispered. Tears streamed down her cheeks, but she made no move to wipe them away or lean on the stoic man near her. These were hers alone. These were the tears of dashed hopes, years of dreaming that she could find him and repay him, all shattered.

They moved back to the room where the would-be heroes had fallen and sat on the stairs where they remained for some minutes. She let the tears come, but did her best not to sob. Her eyes flickered, and would occasionally see his three victims laid out around her. She winced when Sephiroth's bitter voice came to her ears once more, "_You will rot._"

Vincent couldn't decide how he felt. Of course he was sad that Sephiroth was dead. But he had never know him, and his insanity was proof enough that he needed to be stopped. He always wanted to know what the boy would become, but with Hojo as a father, he should have feared the worst. Lucrecia must not have survived, it was probably better that she had died than to have seen what her son had become.

If Sephiroth had known his mother, known that he was birthed the same as a normal human would it have made a difference? Was it his longing for a mother that drove him to latch so desperately onto Jenova?

Eventually she stood and walked up to one of the pods, putting a gentle hand next to the porthole. She stared at the familiar green glow within the pod… too damn familiar, she knew what it looked like with her eyes closed.

"Do you think it matters, how we're made?" she said softly.

That caught his attention, "What?"

"_Am I… a human being?"_ A voice echoed from the past.

She leaned her forehead against it. "Just thinking, he asked me that once. I said I didn't think it mattered." She closed her eyes and left out a long slow breath, as though trying to dispel the fog from her heart. Vincent found himself looking at his left hand, flexing the muscles. "I guess he couldn't hear me anymore…"

"_You were --e greatest monst-- created by the Jenova Pro-ect." _It was hard to keep it all shut out.

"He might have been ok," she continued after a pause, "if he didn't have a devil speaking in his ear. Another one from the project, Genesis, one that went bad before he did." She scoffed, "It's stupid, thinking that not being a pure human was the thing that made them monsters…"

"You don't think of those as monsters?" he asked, gesturing to the vats. He wondered at what scale Hojo's experiments were being done. How many of them were one-offs like Ralena, Sephiroth and himself? How many were done in batches, like those pods and the robed figures in town? How _large_ were those batches?

"You and I have met humans that were far worse without the help of alien cells or experimentation." They both thought of one in particular… "Those things never got a chance to prove what they were. Actions make monsters, not physicality or heritage." Her eyes glowed again as she scanned the vats, he watched her, assuming the reason behind this action would become evident. "These feel like empty vessels. They have no feelings that I can sense."

She viscously wiped the tears off of her face. She had done enough crying today. "Well, technically, the report didn't lie. It was an incident at a Mako Reactor…" It was a poor attempt at a joke, but she felt needed to say something.

***

There wasn't much conversation the next day, quiet discussions on how to avoid the dragons on the mountain and what paths were safe. Vincent was surprised at how nimble the chocobo was, while they couldn't ride it in this terrain, they were still able to take routes he hadn't thought the bird could traverse. Otherwise, the mood was somber between the two as they digested everything they had learned together over the last two days. They had both known of Sephiroth at different ends of his life, and had very different expectations, all had been defied.

"This one is smaller," she whispered as they approached another dragon blocking the path. They had managed to avoid all of the others they had come across so far. "Do you think we can take it?"

He scanned the area over, not finding any switchbacks or alternative paths to get where they needed to go. Without a map it was impossible to tell from here. "We may not have a choice," he answered finally. "Let's observe it a while longer and make sure it is alone. We can open with range attacks first."

She nodded, "Makes sense, do you want the Barrier or should I do it?"

"You should keep the support magic," he said. Rather than be offended she gave him a confused look. After a few moments hesitation he let out a breath. "…There is a chance that I may lose control."

She looked at him doubtfully. Vincent had been the epitome of calm control since the moment she met him, "Really?"

He let out a slow breath, "My punishment is that I am cursed with a body I cannot always control. I have managed to not use it so far, thanks in no small part to you taking the front line. But with a foe this dangerous, odds are I will not have a choice."

"You mean your limit break?" she asked.

He nodded, "Probably."

"… You're not sure?"

He shook his head, "I have not _chosen_ to use it since Hojo changed me."

"But it has happened…"

"I will do my best to keep control," he said, a determined gaze set on their target, "But if you want to part ways afterward I will understand."

"I doubt I will," she shrugged. "You put up with my crazy, it would be unfair if I didn't put up with yours. For now, let's talk materia and tactics." There was further discussion and an exchange of materia. With Iris crouched snugly behind some rocks, she cast barrier on each of them. Vincent lined up his shot, aiming for the most vital part he could manage as Ralena gathered the energy she required for the summon.

She'd only used it once before on the way up the mountain, just to test it out. Unlike other spell materia, summons could be very draining. The wielder had to focus and channel mana into it to keep the summon around. Aside from having average mana reserves, Ralena did not have the focus required to maintain such magic while fighting. Using it for a first strike, on the other hand, seemed like a good tactic. Another body on the battlefield to take off the initial heat could only be an asset. Odin, it was called, its name was whispered in her mind before she first summoned it.

Holding the magic she waited for him to fire first. At the sound of the gunshot she let loose. The dragon roared in pain and Odin rode down from the sky upon a six legged mount. Riding past, the summon stuck the dragon with its massive lance. It gave Vincent a chance to cast a Bio spell on the reptile and line up another shot. Once the dragon turned away from them to strike at Odin, the swordswoman released the summon and drew her blades, planning to close in from behind before it completely dissipated. She hoped she had the right techniques in mind for getting past it's tough scales, it meant going for the joints and underbelly, which was risky on a creature this big.

Vincent and Ralena fought and danced around the beast, trying the get its attention away from the other in a dangerous game of monkey in the middle. They tried to stay on opposite sides of the winged reptile, making it turn back and forth as much as they could. She didn’t move fast enough on a withdrawal and was knocked over by its tail for her trouble. Sensing her weakness it turned back to her and just managed to get a fresh Barrier over herself as its claws struck the field.

Trying to draw its attention, Vincent came up on its side and unloaded into the side of its face and neck. Roaring in pain, it pounced upon him faster than he had anticipated.

Her eyes went wide in horror. "VINCENT!!" she screamed, but was suddenly silenced by a feeling that came over her. A rush of rage and savagery triggered her senses and she had to force herself to not re-enter the fray carelessly.

She was about to understand why Vincent felt he was cursed.

A growl rose up from beneath the dragon, it yelped and drew back, one of its claws mangled and bleeding. Thoughts of survival kicking into gear, Ralena cast her cure spell on the horned purple beast she presumed to be Vincent. She could feel the wild will to survive and primal savagery of the creature he had become. Still human sized, but clearly far more dangerous, it's corded muscles tensed as it pounced on the dragon's back. It ripped into the scaled back with its claws, shredding the vanes in one of its wings. The Dragon rolled, shedding itself of its violet furred assailant. The Vincent-beast bounded off, preventing itself from being crushed. It through its head back an roared, fire burst around the dragon in the form of half a dozen small, scattered explosions. As the winged beast squinted against the blinding light, the beast ran back into the fray attacking with a ferocity the hunter had rarely witnessed.

Deciding that there was no way she was going to get the dragon's attention, Ralena switched her focus to aiding her companion and made a point of blocking out foreign emotions. Healing him of the damage that still remained and recasting a _Barrier _on him before doing the same for herself and jumping back into the fray.

The speed with which the beast attacked was mind boggling. She didn't know if was honestly aware of the danger that the dragon posed and was that quick out of desperation or not. With the beast biting into the side of the dragons neck she risked running up and jabbing her dagger, with its shorter, sturdier blade into the base of its neck.

Her aim and luck helped her slide it in between the scales and wrenched the blade across space between. Blood sprayed out and she withdrew rapidly as the dragon began to thrash violently. Still feral, Vincent merely readjusted his grip, moving behind the dragon's head and digging his claws underneath the dragon's jaw. Blood gurgled out of its mouth as it tried to roar in defiance of death, before falling limply to the ground.

Once the dragon was dead the beast continued to rip into it, slowly she backed up. It turned to her and she immediately dropped her weapons, which seemed to calm it a little, but not as much as she would have liked. She hadn’t tried this much, but she attempted to emit an aura of calm and peace, talking to him like an overactive chocobo. "Vincent, it's me. Remember? Ralena? I'd like to think we're friends… even though it's only been 2 or 3 days…"

Several tense seconds passed.

Finally the huge irises shrunk a little to expose the whites, and recognition seemed to dawn in them. She cowered as it threw back its head and let out a roar, once the sound faded Vincent was on his knees panting. Ralena ran to his side. "Vincent are you ok?"

"Now you see what kind of monster I truly am," he responded wearily, he could still taste the sulphurous blood of the dragon in his mouth. "I understand if you want me to leave."

"You've got to be kidding." He looked up at her in surprise. She didn't see his reaction, whistling for Iris and then gesturing for him to get on, he looked exhausted. She would have liked to get some claws or teeth from the dragon. But with him weak from his change he could not watch her back for the scavengers that would be on their way soon. They'd also have to find a spring to wash all of the blood off before they camped, there wasn't much time to waste.

"You're not scared?" he said as she helped him up.

A memory flashed through her mind, eyes full of self-doubt looking at her, "_Ralena… what makes a monster?_"

"Terrified," she grinned, "but no more so then you probably are."

"Probably?" he asked getting on the bird, "I thought you could read feelings."

"I almost never do it on purpose," she stated, "I start to get messed up between what's mine and what's not. Besides, I've been told that it's rude." After making sure he was secure she asked, "Do you need more healing?"

He shook his head. He was no longer injured, just fatigued from his transformation. That was not something the materia she had could take care of. It didn't seem as awful as the first time, maybe he just didn't notice because he had been mauled by a dragon first.

She led the chocobo passed the corpse and down the path that would lead them further west. After a few minutes she spoke up again, "Side note: 'I lose control' and 'I metamorphose into a bloodthirsty beast with horns and fur that can use fireballs,' are very different."

***

That night at camp, they were sitting in silence after having eaten. They were not quite opposite each other across the fire, and she was leaned against the warm feathers of her sleeping chocobo. Poking the fire, Ralena spoke up dully, "I used to think that the experiments that the doctor… that Hojo, did to me must have been the worst possible thing." She snorted and Vincent looked her way. "Gods, was I naive." She looked over at him, "It seems everything he touches loses control."

A bitter smirk touched Vincent's mouth, almost taking some dark humor at his situation "True."

"Why…" she was hesitant to ask, "Why did he do that to you?"

The smirk disappeared, "I was assigned to the research team as their bodyguard. When I realized how far they were willing to go for the sake of their research... He even convinced one of his fellow scientists, Lucrecia, to use her own unborn child as a test subject. I asked too many questions and began to protest their methods. One day I got too… passionate in my arguments and the bastard shot me. While I was injured and dying he managed to stabilize me enough to start using me as a test subject. He…" Vincent shrugged, unsure of the right word, "grafted other forms onto me. It basically killed me. The last thing he did before leaving the mansion was putting me in that box."

There was silence for a minute, she absorbed what he said, putting it into the context of the feelings and memories she had glimpsed while in that mansion. The cries of "_Give me back my son!_" and "_Why did you let this happen!?_" still lingered in her mind. She had a feeling that she would never forget.

"I was one of Hojo's projects for years," she said, drawing his attention. "I was just a child when they got me. Picked me right up off of the street with promises of hot food as part of a charity program. Told me one of their other guys already picked up my brother, which was a lie, but there were other kids in the car, so I believed them. It wasn't more than a few days for me to be chosen, though I couldn't tell you why."

She poked the again, making small embers float out and die off like tiny stars. "If I cooperated, I could go back home to my brother." She looked at him a moment, knowing she didn't have to state the value of that promise. "I wasn't the only one mind you, but the others either didn't meet the standards or… failed." Her frown deepened at the thought. "From what I picked up over the years, I was to be part of a 'comparative study.' Hojo's previous controls had escaped. He usually called them 'specimens,' though a few times I heard the word 'Cetra.' That was whose DNA they put in me. When you told me Jenova_ wasn't_ actually a Cetra, it put me a bit at ease. It shouldn't be that _thing's_ cells in me. The injections were combined with a number of other treatments. Mako radiation exposure mostly. Time in those awful pods… I hate swimming underwater."

Vincent knew that feeling quite well. A large amount of his time as Hojo's specimen, and in Lucrecia's… care, was in such a tube. He wasn't coherent or even conscious for most of it, but he still remembered, his nightmares had kept the memory fresh. But her… for years, and as a child no less.

"One night when I was about… fourteen or fifteen maybe, I was in the dark room for not cooperating," the name held weight, but he didn't ask. "Someone who wasn't supposed to be there happened by and talked to me. He actually asked me my name," She smiled slightly at the memory. "It was the first time in a long time that I really felt human."

"He came back to talk with me many times, mostly late at night so that no one would know. He said he didn't need as much sleep as other people. And he had the coolest green eyes, and long silver hair. He was the only star in my night sky." She chuckled, thinking about how silly it sounded. "I think he was sad, a lot. Trouble about his friends he said, but otherwise he wouldn't talk about it." She smiled, "Then finally, one night while Hojo was off-site, Sephiroth took me away." The smile faded, "A couple months later he was announced KIA."

Now it made sense to Vincent, before she implied that she had just met Sephiroth once. At that point he had assumed that she was just some obsessive fan or a conspiracy theorist. To be fair, ShinRa had plenty of conspiracy to go around. But now he understood that he had been the only good thing in her life at a dark time. He was also her savior. No wonder she had taken his fall so hard, why she had pushed herself to feel everything she could in that awful place in an attempt to understand _why_.

She turned to Vincent, "It wasn't till I met Sephiroth that I even knew I had this extra sense. He noticed my eyes changing when we talked, it's not like I usually had a mirror available to me. And I always asked him about what he was feeling, no matter the poker face he put up. He warned me to never tell Hojo if I wanted any chance of him getting bored with me."

"The only downside to Sephiroth rescuing me was that he left me with a family in the Midgar slums. We didn’t know how much my powers messed me up in such a crowded place. I did my best to keep it under control, and mostly just kept my mouth shut or mentioned a headache if I felt too much… which was a lot." She sighed, "Several months after he left me with that family, someone in the housing complex must have pissed off either ShinRa or a mob boss." She pulled her knees up and rested her chin on them, "The place was burned down, a lot of people were killed. I was heading back when I saw the flames and it was spreading. The panic and the anguish I picked up were too much for me. I ran. I ran until I was out of Midgar and I have never been back."

He caught a tone of regret in her voice about not returning. "Do you want to go back?"

She nodded. "I think if my brother is still alive he's there,"

"What's his name?"

"I… I don't remember," she said, a little ashamed, "Early on, Hojo's experiments really messed with my memory. Or maybe it was just because I was so young. I remember moments, events, our house in the village by the woods. I was on the way to forgetting my own name when I met Sephiroth."

"What's keeping you from going back to Midgar?"

"I don't have enough control to handle so many people packed in together. Junon was pretty rough when I passed through. I'd have to have somebody willing to go with me." she grumbled, "I basically need a babysitter."

After a while longer watching the crackling fire in silence she got up and unpacked her sleeping bag. "Ralena."

"hmm?" She looked over at him.

He was still in his same reclined condition, staring into the fire. Barely turning his head he met her eyes, "If our travels take us to Midgar, I'll stay with you."

A genuine smile of gratitude covered her face and she resisted the urge to run over and hug him. "Thank you, Vincent."

****

It was another two days before they got to the bottom of the mountain, navigating switchbacks and trying to avoid the larger monsters. Fortunately, the further they got from the reactor the less frequent the monsters were and the further they traveled each day.

By then Iris had taken a liking to Vincent, or so Ralena had said. He didn't think trying to steal his lunch and bumping against him seemed like affectionate behavior, but he wasn't terribly familiar with the bird.

They had camped a little bit off of the side of the road, partly obscured by the terrain. Ralena was up on watch, trying not to fall asleep from boredom. She stood up and stretched when she sensed something strange. Someone was coming down the road. Down the monster infested mountain pass… in the middle of the night.

Grabbing her weapons she moved away from the small campfire, and from behind a rock she watched the road. The feeling she was picking up was strange and alien. There was a sense of searching, of pride, but also a cruel playfulness. There was also a feeling she could only describe as 'alien,' like something she had never felt before. She reached out her senses as much as she could. Her instincts screamed at her that whatever it was, she should not reveal herself.

It was a good thing that she had already decided not to move as a vision of Sephiroth came floating down the path. She blinked and her breath caught. It had to be a vision, she didn't care how clear it was. Sephiroth was dead… and she was pretty sure he couldn't fly. In silence the silver haired figure moved by, part of her wanted to call out, to talk to him, but it was silenced. A strange fear welled up inside of her and gripped her heart.

She stayed in the one spot for a good minute after he had disappeared down the road. The strange terror in her heart took that long to fade before she moved back to the campfire, her heart still racing. She convinced herself that it must have been because her abilities had been overloaded in Nibelheim.

Even if she had never had a vision that seemed so real before…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh lord, trying to write out her seeing the past out of chronological order.  
Yes, I am including Crisis Core events in here, but where it conflicts with the original I am leaning on the original game (notably the room where Cloud throws Seph into a pit).
> 
> New Source material  
When I first wrote Empathy I only had the original game to go off of and a handful of untranslated scanned images from Doujinshi (Sephiroth playing piano came from that), my how far we have come. Now there is Dirge of Cerberus for Vincent's background, Crisis Core for Sephiroth, Zack and Cloud. I will bring in some elements from these, but I am not really sure how much (YouTube is a hell of a drug). I have miniature humans in my house that demand too much time to actually play these games.
> 
> Side note… I don't actually like the Chaos/Omega bit from Dirge of Cerberus. Deepground would have been enough of a villain on its own. Chaos' purpose is not really relevant in what I have planned right now, but I am thinking of other things.


	3. The Ones Chosen

They had just reached the tree line near the base of the mountain the next day when Vincent looked back and noticed something on the trail behind them.

"What is it?" Ralena asked.

She saw his eyes calculating, "People," he said finally.

"Are you sure?" she turned back to the trail to look, he pointed out a landmark, using that she spotted them as well. "Do you think it's anything we have to worry about?"

"They are not ShinRa," Vincent quickly said, as he analyzed the details he could see.

"How can you tell?" the empath asked, squinting her eyes in their direction.

"Their clothes," he stated simply, "ShinRa loves a uniform."

He didn't seem to be making a joke, but she couldn't help but chuckle. "They seem to be a ways back up. How far behind us do you think they are? An hour?"

"Perhaps longer," he put in.

"Should we wait to see who it is? Maybe travel with them to Rocket Town?"

Vincent wasn't sure how he felt about traveling with that many other strangers. He made out six people and two… animals? Regardless he nodded. "We may as well rest in the meantime."

It was over half an hour later that the red head noticed something had changed, "Wasn't there one more of them?"

"They probably sent out a scout," Vincent replied from his shady spot under a tree. He was reclined back, hand up on one knee. "They don't know who we are, or if we are alone."

"Oh… yeah that makes sense." A little bit later, Iris perked up, alert and pointing back towards the woods. Ever aware of her mount's reactions Ralena stood, turned to the woods where the bird was watching and drew her weapons. As the last link in the chain, Vincent followed suit and unholstered his gun.

A group of about a dozen giant insects, a strange mix between grasshoppers and mosquitoes burst out of the woods. Eyes going wide at the sheer quantity, Ralena immediately began casing Barrier spells as Vincent opened fire. They pulled in close to each other, Iris included. "Think they'll get here in time to help?" She asked.

He glanced in the direction of the approaching party, they had picked up their pace they were closer than he had anticipated, but not by much. "Only if they have very long range attacks."

"Ok," she said, batting one aside that came in for a hit, grinning. "It's time to show off then."

"Don't get overconfident."

"Heh, you sound like my blade master," She threw a lightning bolt at one of the bugs and stabbed another with a thrust, barely withdrawing in time to not be struck by a third.

As a gunman, Vincent was quickly on the defensive once their enemies closed in. While Ralena had gotten used to his limit break over the past few days, he was sure strangers would not be safe from his wrath should he change. As a needle-like proboscis bounced off of his barrier he shot the bug through the head. Another came up on his left and he raised his gauntlet to deflect it.

Ralena, on the other hand had gotten herself a little too far away from him and Iris. She got a strike in on one, slicing off the end of its nose. Another then performed a bizarre maneuver where it flipped over and slammed itself down upon her, breaking through her Barrier and knocking her to the ground. He was about to offer her some support when the chocobo snapped the bug up in its beak and tossed it up in the air, where it spread out its wings and came back around to the fight. With the larger target in front, several of the bugs jumped onto the pale blue bird. Jumping back up, Ralena's expression turned dark and she attacked, kicking one aside and stabbing at another with her side-sword. "Get off her!"

Vincent didn't have much time to be surprised at the woman's anger. He cast _Bio_ on two of the creatures as he backed closer to his allies, trying to conserve his ammunition. With this many opponents reloading would be risky.

"Incoming!" they heard a distant voice yell. Sparing a glance Vincent saw the shimmering form of a blue skinned woman flying their way at high speed. A chill breeze arrived with her and she blasted five of the bugs with ice.

"They have Summon Materia!?" Ralena commented out, "Cool!" She took advantage of the lull in attacks and managed to dispatch one with a swift slash from both her blades, helping to clear Iris of the ones her. "No pun intended."

The snow woman kept the creatures pinned long enough for the three of them to finish several more of the other bugs. As the summon faded like a morning fog, Vincent reloaded. _Seven left, all injured_, he thought.

A few seconds later and two more were down, the sensation of a healing spell came over him. Vincent was taking aim when he heard Ralena call out to him. Turning, he saw one closing in on him from the right, too fast for him to turn and shoot. Suddenly a blur of red-orange fur slammed into it, bringing it to the ground. The flame tailed cat flipped over, landing on its feet, and pounced again as the gunman went back to his original target.

With a few other spells coming in from the approaching group and the aid of the big cat the rest of the fight went quickly. As the group trotted forward, Ralena tried to calm down Iris, who was warily eyeing the big cat. "It's ok girl, he's a friend." The cat just sat there, looking at the bird, making no aggressive moves, though it did seem to be studying the bird intently.

"Are you ok?" The question came from a woman with long black hair that looked strangely familiar to the redhead. Without heavy gear or a weapon, she was the first to make it over to them. She wore a white tank top, a short black skirt and fighting gloves.

"Yeah, thanks to your help," Ralena replied. "We saw you on the road behind us and thought we'd wait. I guess it gave them time to gather up."

"Are they alright, Tifa?"

The woman in question stepped aside revealing a man with spiky blonde hair, a SOLDIER uniform and a familiar looking sword as wide as his torso. There was no denying that face and hair, even devoid of the expression of righteous rage she had seen. "Are you-" Ralena started, but Vincent put a hand on her shoulder, and she let the question die on her lips.

"What?" the blonde asked.

"I was wondering if you are a SOLDIER?" she covered, gesturing to his clothes.

"Not anymore," he said, shaking his head.

A memory sparked in her brain, "_No one 'just leaves' the ShinRa, Ralena._"

"You were in Nibelheim, and up at the Reactor," the red feline said suddenly. Startled by his ability to talk, Ralena turned to look at the beas- pers… him.

Before she could answer, one of companions asked, "How did you know?"

The blonde and the others seem to look back at him for explanation. As if it was obvious he nodded towards the large blue bird behind the woman. "I know you cannot scent like I can, but did you not see the chocobo tracks?" The various other members of Avalanche looked lost, none of them had ever done much survival training, if any. The cat shook his head. These people were hopeless.

"What were you doing in Nibelheim?" The blonde man asked, clearly on guard.

"I was looking into the what ShinRa had done. I heard stories and things that didn’t add up and I wanted to find out the truth..." she paused a moment, unsure if she wanted these strangers to know the real reason. In the end she decided to leave most of the details out for now. "I was also wanted to know what really happened to Sephiroth, I used to look up to him and the news 5 years ago seemed... suspicious."

A dark look came over the blonde man's eyes, she had little doubt he was the same one she had seen in her visions at the reactor. "We're actually chasing after Sephiroth."

Vincent and Ralena shared a confused look, "But... he's dead, right?"

"For a dead man he sure has been killing a lot of folks lately," the large gun-armed man said.

A wave of emotions ran over the empath at the realization, hands over her face she began cursing, "Dammit! Dammit, Dammit!"

The other group was taken aback, then the woman called Tifa stepped toward her, "Are you ok?"

"No I am not," she said, calming down with a deep breath. "I thought he was dead. I… I woke up last night and I saw him. I saw Sephiroth. He was a bit away from our camp and he was floating like a ghost so I thought it was a dream and I did nothing! I'm such an idiot! UGH!"

Another woman in a pink dress and kind eyes spoke up next, "Don't say that. Like you said, you thought he was dead. Besides, if you had tried to speak with him, he probably would have killed you."

The empath wondered about that, but otherwise agreed. "I'm Ralena by the way, and this is Vincent Valentine." He nodded in greeting to them.

"I'm Aerith," the woman in pink said. Ralena felt a strange kinship with the girl, but couldn't figure out why.

"Tifa," the other woman chimed in, both of them sported a friendly smile.

The blonde man spoke up next, if he could actually wield that sword he was carrying properly it would be impressive to see. "I'm Cloud."

"The name's Barret," by comparison this dark man was massive in build and sported a gun grafted onto his arm.

"Heya, I'm Cait Sith." said the… talking… cat thing that was riding a fat mog. Ralena was just confused about that one, though she sensed nothing come off of him, which was a little off putting, until she later realized it was a robot.

"I am Red XIII," said the flame tailed cat. Ralena swallowed, she was familiar with that name format, and the tattoo on the creatures shoulder made her want to cringe.

"What is your real name?" She was surprised when the words came out of Vincent before she could manage it.

The cat looked between the two of them, reading their expressions. "Nanaki."

"And we're Avalance!" Barret supplied, as though he expected the others to take up poses around him.

"Really?" Ralena asked. Rag tag as they were, this is not what she expected the anti-ShinRa, probably-a-terrorist group to be like. "We were curious to meet up wi-"

"Hey don't forget about me!" came a voice from the trail behind them.

"Well if you didn't take so damn long scoutin' then you woulda been included!" He yelled back. "Did you swing around to Wutai?"

"Yuffie is that you?" the red head asked.

"You know each other?" Cloud asked.

"Oh yeah, she tried to rob me on my way to Nibelheim," she replied, as though they had met at a coffee shop.

Barret leaned smugly over to the ninja in question, "Got yer ass kicked? huh?"

"No way," she replied, hands on her hips, "We were nearly even!"

"I had my chocobo sit on her," Ralena smirked.

"Oh my gawd don't tell them!" The girl replied in embarrassed outrage.

There was a bit of a laugh before Ralena spoke up again. "Is Sephiroth still a part of ShinRa?"

Barret waved a hand, "Nah, he killed President Shinra and tore his way out of the tower."

"Then why are you chasing him? I thought you guys were Anti-ShinRa."

"We're more about saving the planet right now." He supplied.

None of this was making any sense, then again, it wasn't like she had read the Avalanche manifesto. "How so?" 'Saving the world' was a very broad, non-specific goal.

Barret seemed to be at a loss for how to explain it. The dark haired woman saw fit to answer. "Sephiroth has some mad plan that will probably kill most of the people on the planet. He wants to get to the Promised land of the Ancients for it. ShinRa also wants the Promised Land to exploit it." Tifa brought up a fist, as if to show her determination. "Yeah, we're pulling double duty on this one."

"What about Hojo?" Vincent asked. No one in the group could mistake the look of dangerous determination in the red eyed man's eyes in that moment.

"Hojo?"

"We both have something personal against that one." Ralena momentarily caught Red XIII's eye.

Cloud thought a minute, "We think he's also on Sephiroth's trail, there's a good chance we'll run into him again."

"Cool, can we join up then?"

"Sure, I say you're in." The large man said.

"Isn't that my call?" Cloud said, a commanding tone seeping into his voice.

"Seriously? You let the fortune-telling cat robot join us without battin' an eye, an' you're not gonna let them in?"

"To be fair, it's more that I didn't cut him in half just for following us."

"HEY!" There was a bit of a laugh at the robot's expense as he mournfully shook his head. Ralena hadn't realized how much she needed one. There was a little bit more conversation before they started moving again. Not wanting to be the only rider. Ralena offered the use of Iris to help carry what little gear they had on them. Aside from Yuffie, she would find them to be woefully unprepared for camping. Well, technically Nanaki was prepared, but he didn't need anything.

Ralena seemed to gravitate towards Aerith after having flitted around the whole group. Vincent assumed the girl's nature may have been subconsciously appealing to the empath. It felt good to see her smile, with the morose mood the both of them had been in since they met, he had almost forgotten that happiness was an option. Though it made him wonder how fluid the empath's nature was. Since joining with the larger group he noticed that her eyes had settled into an almost normal shade of green that seemed to be lacking any sort of glow. He found himself wondering if that was her natural resting state.

For the most part, Vincent himself only spoke briefly with Cloud and Barret, his past as a Turk got brought up and he assured both of them that he no longer had any ties to ShinRa. Old habits did die hard, though. When he caught himself analyzing his new companions, he continued on with it. Knowing your allies was as important as knowing your enemies.

Cloud was an interesting choice for leader. He didn’t seem like he was quite ready for the role, but was doing an admirable job adapting. Which may be why Tifa would occasionally cast him a concerned glance. The woman was pretty sure of herself otherwise, clearly comfortable with her body and confident in her physical abilities.

Barret was an easy read, full of bluster and determination, it wasn't hard to tell that he had been the leader at one point. Yuffie almost seemed to be along for the ride, but there was a gleam that came to her eyes every once in a while that made him not trust her yet. Nanaki was difficult to get a read on, given his non-human body language, but his nature seemed reserved, more akin to his own. Aerith seemed deceptively sweet and honest, though he didn't put her above a little white lie or two. She didn't seem to fit in with the rest of the group, like a damsel along for the ride. That was until he saw her in a fight. While her melee skills were lacking, the ease with which she wielded magic was amazing. She and Tifa seem to take turns at being the group mom, Tifa generally seeming to be the softer of the two.

Lastly, there was Cait Sith. Undoubtedly some kind of remote controlled robot. There was no point in attempting to read its movements, especially since it seemed to spend a decent amount of time on auto-pilot following the party. He had no intention of trusting that thing as far as he could drop it until he knew who was behind the controls. Afterall there were relatively few places one could get that kind of technology…

That was one thing that Avalanche seemed to be lacking. A suspicious mind.

They had taken them in easily enough with very little thought to whether or not they were spies. They even recruited someone who tried to rob them. Then again he supposed that was how SOLDIERs thought. Get objective, find objective, destroy objective. It was the job of a Turk to investigate, after all. For now he would observe and keep his thoughts to himself. When he felt he had a better handle on things he would speak with Cloud if there was anything worth mentioning.

A few hours later, Ralena found herself at the back of the group alone with Vincent. She seemed lighter than she had the past few days. He was unsure if it was because of their distance from Nibelheim or the affect that added company had upon her. "What were you going to ask him?" he asked out of nowhere.

"Huh?" she looked at him confused. He was still looking straight ahead.

"When you first saw Cloud," he stated, "you were going to ask him something."

She blinked in surprise, "You didn't know?"

"It seemed that you weren't sure if you should," he noted.

There was a few seconds where she watched the back of the blonde man's head before answering. "Cloud was there…" she said quietly, "He was the blonde at the reactor. Tifa was the girl."

"It would have led to questions you don't want to answer yet," he said knowingly. "It is better to let others speak first. They will often answer your questions without asking." Vincent considered the information. Those two had suffered directly at the hand of Sephiroth. Who, at this point, Vincent felt partly responsible for. Whether it was fate or coincidence he found himself in the company of people that his inaction had affected. He didn't feel indebted to them exactly, but he would help them along the way, unless they proved to be completely incompetent.

*****

That night, after they had set up camp and eaten a less than thrilling dinner of rations, Ralena walked up to the flame tailed cat. "Hey Nanaki, can I have a moment with you?"

"Yes, and you can call me Red XIII."

"No… I can't,” she said, sitting down beside him.

"Why not?" He had an idea, the look she had given him when he introduced himself and her reaction to Hojo’s name were clear hints.

Looking down at the dirt, she touched her left shoulder, "My Number is 3."

"… I see." For Red XIII, who didn't wear clothes, it was an odd thing to realize that their two new companions were the only ones with long sleeves. He knew now she was covering her tattoo and wondered if Vincent had similar reasons.

Looking back at him, she spoke up again, "You're from Cosmo Canyon, right?"

He nodded.

"I had a goal in getting to Nibelheim before, but I planned to go there later. I heard the people there know a lot of the older lore… Do you know anything about the Cetra?"

"Why do you ask?"

"When I was… at ShinRa, I know Hojo put Cetra DNA in me… I guess, I just want to know that I'm dealing with."

"If you want to know what a Cetra is, you are talking to the wrong one." 

"Why is that?"

The feline nodded over to one of the two women sitting on opposite sides of Cloud. "Aerith is one."

Startled, Ralena sat up straight, and looked back and forth across the fire. "Really?" Relief washed over her, Aerith looked so normal. She watched as the two women talked across the blonde SOLDIER, they were friendly to each other but the empath clearly caught signs of competition for his attention. 

Ralena smiled, "She looks busy, I think I'll save it for tomorrow. Meanwhile would you mind telling me more about Cosmo Canyon?"

She found some time to take Aerith aside the next day. She was open with the flower girl about why she wanted to know about the Cetra, but asked her not to mention it to the others yet, as she had with Nanaki.

“I honestly can’t tell you much," she sighed. "My mother died before I was old enough to really understand what she told me. I can hear the planet though.”

"You can hear the planet? What does it sound like?" she asked.

"It depends on where I am, I could barely hear it in Midgar. It cries near Mako reactors. Out here in the wild it sings. A lot of time I can hear voices, but other times it's more of a song and a feeling."

"Maybe that's why…"

"_Why_, what?" She explained to Aerith about her abilities as an empath. They agreed that whatever Hojo had done to her had altered the Cetra's ability to hear the planet into her being able to feel emotions and see memories. She asked Ralena if she knew where the Cetra samples came from.

"I don't know, he was always careful with it though. I think he had it in storage. He treated it like he couldn't get much more. But he must have had a lot, or at least had a way to replicate some of it." A little while later, when the empath separated from her to go talk with Yuffie, Aerith's gaze followed her with a frown on her face. If Ralena had Cetra DNA injected into her, there was only one place that Hojo could have taken it from…

***

As a group of their size, they had little to fear from creatures attacking them though they still did occasionally send out Red and Yuffie to scout ahead. Despite this lack of concern Vincent decided around lunch time that next day to make sure he informed the group about how his limit break worked. They were seated at the edge of the forest, taking advantage of the shade before breaking out over the plains.

"So… you turn into a monster?" Yuffie asked.

He nodded.

"And you can't really control yourself, afterward?" added a fearful Cait Sith.

Another nod.

"I've seen him do it a few times while we traveled down the mountain," Ralena spoke up, "I usually drop my weapons once the fighting is done and after a few seconds he calms down and changes back."

That was technically true, but she had no idea how _hard_ it was for him to reign in the beast. It was wary of her still, and didn't like to be "put away" while it felt they were still in danger. He had no idea how the Galian Beast would react to this many other, unfamiliar people around.

"Have you tried not dropping your weapons?" Barret asked, holding up his not-droppable gun-arm.

She shook her head. "It wasn't worth the risk with just two of us." She declined to mention to anyone about her supernatural method of calming him, partly because she wasn't sure if it actually did anything.

Not long before sunset, Yuffie came back to the group from scouting over the hills. She had found a cabin among a copse of trees and some large rocks that they could probably use for shelter that night.

When they got there it was obvious the cabin was small, one room with a small bed, wood burning stove in the opposite corner and a small table with two chairs. "It's a bit tight, but at least there's a roof," Cloud commented.

"There's a stack of firewood out back too," Ralena said, peaking her head in the doorway, she had Iris' saddle bags and set the mount off to range on her own. She was unconcerned about the cyan bird, the special whistle she had could call the bird back from far off distances. 

"We might want to do a bit of pest control…" Aerith's lips curled slightly at the sight of several spider webs.

Tifa and Aerith shooed most of the others out while they tidied up, recruiting Cait and Yuffie to assist. They performed some bug extermination with low level ice and fire magic and took the dusty sheets out to shake off. Dinner was caught by Red XIII and Ralena. Cloud, Barret and Vincent did a sweep of the immediate area while gathering tinder and kindling to get the fire started.

The sleeping arrangement took a bit of discussion during the meal. In the end it was agreed that, as the largest of them, Barret should get the bed. Few were surprised that Cloud ended up between Tifa and Aerith. Ralena and Yuffie ended up on either side of the other girls. Like any proper cat, Red XIII picked a spot close to the stove. Cait Sith was placed atop the table after dinner and the mog was tucked under. Vincent propped himself against a corner by the door, at the foot of the bed.

He listened to everything for a little while. He didn't seem to need as much sleep anymore. He didn’t know if that was a side effect of his condition, or of having slept for more than 2 decades. He smirked slightly at what he assumed was the sound of Cloud moving around and trying not to wake either woman next to him. There was some light snoring, but it seemed that everyone was too tired to be bothered by it. Eventually he dozed off.

He awoke in the moments before dawn at the feeling of something tapping his foot. Red eyes opening he looked down his leg towards Nanaki whose flame-lit tail was whipping back and forth nervously in the dim light of the cabin. The feline's demeanor put him on edge, but the method of waking was definitely done in a way so as to not make noise. He nodded to indicate he was paying attention.

Nanaki turned his head towards the window by the table, silently padding over and moved his tail closer to it to light the window.

For a moment Vincent didn't realize what he was supposed to be seeing out the dirty window… Dirty? The ladies had made a point of cleaning far more than he thought necessary for an overnight stay. Silently standing he turned his eyes towards the window that was over his sleeping spot.

There was a gossamer layer of white covering the window and most of the small patio that the cabin had.

Spider webs.

If he had to guess the entire cabin was coated in it, but what could- A faint but sharp sound found its way to his ears. Most people didn't know what the sound of giant insects moving was like. But every member of Avalanche did after their trek through the infested woods. This sounded bigger.

He certainly hoped that no one in the group had arachnophobia.

He began the agonizingly slow process of waking the group quietly, starting with Ralena. He would have started with Cloud, but with Tifa and Aerith as close as they were, he knew waking him was waking three people.

Once she understood she was supposed to be quiet, even if she wasn't sure why, the redhead assisted Vincent with waking the trio quietly. With Nanaki looking out the window and his hackles slightly raised it wasn't hard to get across the sense of urgency.

They quietly put on their shoes and gathered their other gear. Cloud moved to the window and he and Vincent conversed as quietly as possible about the situation.

"The door is probably blocked with webbing, so charging out, is gonna be difficult."

"Opening the door alone will get its attention," Vincent noted.

"We have to leave though," Cloud stated, "there's no room to move in here."

"Webbing is flammable, but we'll want someone to make sure the cabin doesn't catch fire." They heard tapping and both looked up.

It was on the roof.

"We've got the patio for cover," Cloud whispered, "We flame the web then the melee can scatter out first, You, Barret and Yuffie add range support from the patio. Aerith can control the fire, before switching to support." Cloud winced at the idea of a sacrificial target, "Once it picks a target we'll converge on it and move from there."

After a moment's consideration, Vincent nodded. Without more information there was little he could add and he felt the budding leader didn't need someone criticizing his plan. Not that he believed the man would be snippy about it, but it would be a blow to his ego that he didn't need. After making sure Aerith had an Ice materia, and a brief outline of the plan. Cloud, Tifa, Red XIII and Ralena lined up by the door..

Cracking the door as quietly and slowly as possible Tifa readied the fire spell. It was less than a second from the webbing igniting and the front line fighters bursting out through the flames in four separate directions. Once they were clear Aerith iced over the patio.

As the flames faded Cloud turned to face the cabin, "Shit! There's two!" he cursed as he saw two massive spiders, whose bodies were twice the size of a chocobo, jump off the roof, one towards him and the other towards Red XIII. Barrier spells went off on the targets and Tifa charged in to the one on the cat. Ralena rushed up behind the one on Cloud and barely got a single strike off before something caught her eye.

The back of the spider was moving on its own. Jumping to strike at its back, she got a better look, and found it was coated in at least a hundred smaller spiders the size of Barret's fist.

She jumped back as a handful of them jumped towards her, "Whelps!" she cried out in alarm.

"Handle it!" Cloud shouted to the support group.

Yuffie summoned, a green, horned humanoid appeared before her and burst past one of the large spiders, trailing fire. A fair number of the spiderlings fell to the ground near Red XIII, smoking and twitching. But several of them had leapt towards the girl, breaking her concentration and Ifrit dissipated before it could be of more use.

Barret climbed on top of a nearby rock and fired into the mass on the back of the one fighting the sword wielders, giving Ralena a chance to get back in on the adult, which she took to be a greater threat. She got a thrust in on the side of the abdomen while Cloud managed to slice one of its legs in half. She nearly got crushed under it and Cloud got snapped at for their trouble.

Across the way, Tifa performed a somersault kick while Red XIII had managed to get on its head, but quickly evacuated at the sight of all of the smaller ones still on its back. He landed on the ground and immediately rolled to shed any possible hitchhikers.

With a steady pace, Vincent walked out from under cover, taking careful aim at the scattering young that tried to sneak up on the fighters, while Yuffie and Barret focused their attention on the larger targets. There were a few shots closer to the melee then they were comfortable with, but Vincent's sharpshooting skills were quickly proven in a short period of time.

"Reloading," he stated and Yuffie came up on his left side to guard him, catching her shuriken on the way. Just as he finished, he found himself shoved to the ground with a warning shout from Yuffie. The one Tifa and Nanaki had been facing off against dropped a mass of spiderlings on them and jumped onto the two ranged combatants.

Flat against the ground, the two tried to roll out of the way. Vincent got struck in his thigh from one of the spider's legs, which was easily the thickness of his own. He rolled backwards into a crouch and shot it pointblank. It barely moved to the side, only getting grazed by the bullet. Then it came down, grabbing him by the torso with its mandibles. Gritting his teeth he jammed his claw into one of the creature's faceted eyes, and he was tossed into the air as a result.

Before it could close in on him where he landed, Tifa and Yuffie ran in to get its attention. Leaving Red and Barret to clean up the spiderlings while Aerith started to make her way across the field towards the injured Vincent. Ralena couldn't afford to turn her back on her enemy, as long as it moved it was a threat. But from the shouts she heard she knew something had gone wrong. As the roar of rage came over the battlefield, her eyes lit up and she caught a blow to the shoulder for the distraction. "That's Vincent!" She yelled without looking, "Just stay out of his way!"

"What are you-" Yuffie didn't get to finish as fireballs erupted around the giant spider, killing what few spawn remained on its back. Then a black horned, purple blur dashed past her and tore a leg off. "Whoa…"

"Oh my… " Tifa muttered before shaking herself out of it. Rushing in she struck on the creature's other side, putting a hefty crack in its chitin. Healing energy waved over the party, but the Galian Beast paid no heed, tearing into the spider with its claws.

Meanwhile Cloud had managed to jam his sword into the other spider's abdomen from beneath and twist the blade crisscrossing his cuts with brutal efficiency. The creature tilted and began to shake.

Not one to miss a chance to double tap, Ralena jumped up towards its head and jammed both of her blades into it. "You got clean up?" Cloud asked, after rolling out from under the spider's shuddering body, smaller spiders were dropping off of it like rain. She nodded, throwing lighting down on one of the spiderlings. "Yuffie, switch!" he shouted. A shuriken flew in as Yuffie moved over to help Ralena in Cloud’s place.

With a berserk Vincent in the fray, Cloud and Tifa had to time their attacks, bounding in and out, just to be on the safe side. Between the three of them the large creature didn't last long. While they backed off of the large, dead spider the others were still cleaning up the clinging and hopping spiderlings that littered the battlefield. The black horned beast charged towards a handful of them on Red XIII, nearly running over the cat. "Who has Sleep!?" Cloud called out, following after their enraged party member.

"On it!" Aerith called.

"Wait 'til he's clear, we don't want him swarmed!" The blonde dashed in, clearing two small spiders on Red's left flank. The beast destroyed six more spiders then dashed across the field towards Ralena's group, Aerith let the magic fly, pouring all the effort she could into it. It slowed before slumping to the ground. "Barret guard him!"

By the time they had finished off the masses of smaller spiders, Vincent had reverted to his human form. Ralena was at his side quickly, joining Aerith who was already checking him for lingering injuries. Two black boots approached, "Is it always like that?" Cloud asked, replacing his sword on his back.

Ralena nodded, "So far. I'm glad the Sleep magic worked…"

He nodded, "He came close a few times on accident, but he didn't injure any of us."

"That's true," Tifa said, thinking of a moment when it rushed past her. "I don't think he's completely out of control like that."

Ambling out of the cabin, a small black and white figure took in the scene, multiple dead spiders, some of which were being eaten by the blue Chocobo. One of their group was on the ground, coming out of it and most of them were scraped and dirty. The cat robot rubbed it's eyes in mock sleep and looked again, "What did I miss?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Notes:
> 
> Yes, I did that.
> 
> Also if you think I am writing this quickly, I'm not. I worked on this for 6 weeks before posting it, as there were decisions I made while planning out the latter portions that I wanted to foreshadow or that altered how I portrayed things earlier on. I have a good number of chapters laid out, I just need to fill in some gaps and edit before I post them.


	4. Rocket Town

As the sky began to turn orange they walked into town. It was relatively small and quaint. Many of the houses had an industrial feel to them, metal bands and sheeting were incorporated into many of the buildings, yet several still sported traditional white picket fences. The industrial touches might have seemed out of place were it not for the massive, aged tower of metal that leaned dangerously behind the town. "What's that?"

"Looks like a rusty old rocket…," Tifa said.

"Why would they make it so huge?"

"Let's worry about that later," Barret interrupted, "I say we get us rooms and some real food."

"Good call," Cloud nodded, "We can ask around in the morning."

Tired and hungry from days on the road the large group was surprisingly subdued at the local pub as they ate and drank. The only minor hiccup was when the owner tried to not allow Red XIII in, but he got double teamed by Aerith and Tifa’s puppy eyes, combined with the fact that Red was intelligent, and he relented. 

The group sat, ate and chatted, even Cait Sith sat with them, even though he didn’t need to eat, leaving the cumbersome Mog at the Inn. In general they were mostly unaware of the looks they got from the locals. Rocket Town wasn’t exactly a booming tourist spot, so a group that size rolling in, with that much road dust on them, was notable. Aside from one point early on, where Yuffie got upset when Barret wouldn’t let her order a beer, they weren’t too obnoxious, so Vincent was confident that they shouldn’t have much problem with the locals the next day.

“Sorry we took up the tables for so long,” Tifa said at the end of the night. By the time they were settling the bill only a few regulars were still sitting around. 

“That’s alright, you happened in on our slow night of the week, we didn’t have to put anyone out.”

“I’m glad,” she smiled. “By the way, we’re looking for a friend. You haven’t seen anyone else come through town lately have you? He’s tall, would’ve been wearing a black cape.”

The owner raised a brow at the description, but given the mixed attire of the group he was looking at, he supposed he would have fit right in. Answering, he shook his head, “If he came through town, he didn’t stop here. You’d do better asking some of the old timers tomorrow. They like to sit out on their porches all day and people watch when they're not talking about the good old days."

They got two rooms at the Inn, split between the men and the women. “What about Cait Sith?” Ralena asked.

“What about him?” Cloud asked, looking back at the robot.

“How do we know he’s a boy? What if it’s a girl running him? Are you boys comfortable with that?” The smirk on her lips clearly showed she was just making fun.

Cloud shrugged, “I was going to sleep in my clothes.”

“Me too,” Vincent replied.

“Well that’s a shame.”

Several eyes turned to the empath, there was also a giggle from Aerith.

Shit, she said that aloud. “Aaaaannd I... drank too much, goodnight!”

***

“Do you really think Vincent is that hot?” Yuffie asked incredulously.

Ralena shrugged, “I mean from what I can see he’s good looking. I guess I’m just… curious what’s under all that. Cloud’s shirt is tight enough, I can figure that out.”

Tifa laughed, “You’re a frisky drunk aren’t you?”

“I’m not drunk… just buzzed,” which she wasn't too used to if she was being honest.

“Yeaaah, if you’re thinking _out loud_ about your guy friends shirtless when you’re buzzed I can only imagine how handsy you’d be drunk.”

“Wha-?”

“I owned a bar in Midgar for a while,” the woman smiled, “I can see the signs.”

“May as well be honest then,” Ralena said with a grin, “I was thinking about way more than just shirtless.”

“But I mean really…" Yuffie said, nosing back into the conversation while the others laugehd, "Don’t you think Vincent kinda is creepy?”

“Nah, he’s just quiet.” She dropped her voice playfully, “and serious.”

“Yeah, but those eyes, and his limit break…”

“Don’t hold it against him, that’s... not his fault.”

“That's why he's after Hojo isn't it?" Aerith asked. Ralena nodded, it wasn't the full story, but she didn't imagine she would want him airing out his dirty laundry.

“There is a more important question to answer.”

“What’s that Tifa?”

“Which one of you is getting the bath after me,” she smiled as she ducked into the bathroom closing the door behind her. There was an indignant shout from Yuffie as she jumped up far too late to get into the room first.

***

"Is she always like that?" Barret asked.

Vincent shook his head in the negative, "I don't think that she usually drinks."

"Gee, how can ya tell?" Barret replied sarcastically.

"She doesn't like to lose control of herself," he wasn't sure it was true, but given her abilities it seemed a safe bet. "What is our plan for tomorrow?" he asked, turning to the blonde leader. Cloud had done well enough with the fight against the spiders, but that was more in line with his training. He was curious to see how he would handle this.

"I figure we'll just ask around town. Tall guys in long cloaks aren't exactly common." There was a beat where he looked at Vincent taking off his cloak. "My point still stands."

"Hn," as Vincent expected it was the straight forward approach. But in a small town like this, where you're asking about a stranger who wanted you to follow him, it was fine. But if they were ever looking for someone who was trying to hide that method wouldn't work at all. How you asked was just as important though, like how Tifa had at the bar. Looking for 'a friend,' was better than 'someone.' He also thought about her friendly manner when she asked and how the bartender seemed to make a point of not looking down for even a moment. Who asked mattered as well, he supposed.

The next morning found the group eating in the now cramped lobby of the inn, working on a breakfast served by the Innkeeper's daughter. As simple as it was, hot and fresh were two very comforting aspects of the meal. While she was bringing the food out Cloud asked her about the town and if she had seen a man in a black cape.

"I'm sorry I haven't," she looked at Vincent, "Are you looking for your brother?"

There was a bit of stifled laughing from Yuffie. "No we are... not related." Ralena noticed a regretful hint to Vincent's voice, but made no comment.

"But as far as this town goes, I guess you could say it's full of dreamers."

"Dreamers?"

She went on to explain that the town was built to support the ShinRa space program, that had been abandoned for years now, after the failed launch of ShinRa No. 26. Despite no longer having funding, a fair number of the mechanics from back then refused to leave or abandon the captain.

"The Captain?"

"Yeah, he's basically in charge of the place," she said, "He spends a lot of time up at the rocket."

As they were leaving the building, Tifa pulled up next to Cloud. "Why don't we get more travelling supplies, while you go talk to the Captain, Cloud?"

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah, seeing some of the stuff Yuffie and Ralena have made me realize we’re missing a lot when we can't find an Inn. So I'm at least taking them and Red XIII with me. We can ask around while we were at it."

"I don't know what help I would be," the feline replied, "I do fine with my fur and teeth."

The brunette smiled, "I'm sure you'll have some thoughts once we get going."

****

The town ended up being smaller than they had first expected. The number of buildings hadn't changed, but it turned out that a good portion of them were empty. Likely abandoned when ShinRa had pulled funding and basically shut down the space program.

After talking to a few people, mostly the elders of the community in their front porch rocking chairs… and some of them for longer than they would have liked, Cloud's group was walking down well beaten trail out to the rocket. About half way there, Cloud broke the silence, "Hey Vincent, can I ask you something?"

"You can."

"Do you know why Ralena's eyes are like that? In SOLDIER I've seen plenty of Mako eyes, but none that change like hers do."

Vincent nodded, "I do," never breaking stride they continued on their way.

Aerith stiffened she didn't know if the red clad man knew about the empath's preference for secrecy. There were several seconds of silence in the group before Barret, spoke up, "Ain't you gonna tell us?"

Vincent seemed almost surprised at the question. "It is not my business to tell." He stated plainly. "You can ask her. All I will say is that Hojo is responsible."

Unlike Yuffie, Aerith didn’t usually find the man "creepy," but when he spoke of Hojo, a man she had blissfully little experience with, he always got subtly more angry. It was the quiet, seething type of anger, the kind that made a person very dangerous.

Vincent noticed that Cait Sith had a bit more of a reaction to the reference. The toy's operator probably didn't have much to do with Hojo, his specialty had always been in the biological. That didn't mean they didn't know each other.

***

Back at his controls, Reeve sat back and considered Avalanche's newest members. He had actually watched most of the fight with the spiders, the audio sensors on the Cait Sith unit didn't alert him until it was under way, so he just stood by and watched. It had taken him a while to find Valentine's file. Seeing the man's transformation put a fire under him, originally, he hadn't looked back far enough and he had only gotten his hands on them that morning. He hadn't had much time to look at it yet, but Reeve was surprised to see that his active time was over twenty five years ago. The fact that he was a former Turk, information he had helpfully supplied to Cloud, meant that he would have to be extra careful around him. The man was probably suspicious already. 

From their introduction to Avalanche he knew that Hojo must have had a hand in his youthful appearance and transformations. Which meant a Subject Transfer Order would be somewhere. Probably not under his name, but he did have the time of Valentine's last assignment, which gave him a timeframe to look in.

He still hadn't found the redhead's information, no last name and a lack of her exact age made it difficult. The knowledge that she was also one of Hojo’s victims would give him a narrower field to look in. If there was anything ShinRa liked as much as uniforms, it was records and paperwork. As with Vincent he would have to go through years of subject transfer documents. He had only looked at those for male subjects before.

He sighed, he didn’t have time for all of this, he still had to get his proposal ready for the Neo-Migar project, even if he didn’t agree with it. Calling his secretary he asked her to pull the subject transfer documents of females from the last 10 years. He could at least have her sift through them for redheads…

But, like with Vincent, after a transfer order as a research subject went in... information available beyond that would be minimal. The science department records were restricted, that egomaniac Hojo didn't think normal people would understand his research.

Probably because the bastard was insane.

***

Tifa found that the experienced outdoors people among them suggested relatively few supplies to make their lives on the road easier. "Travelling light is important," Yuffie said, "the fact that we have so many people means we can spread out the gear. We shouldn't need more than one of anything, but stuff that has overlapping functions is good."

"What about a pot or pan?" the brawler asked, it didn't take her long to get bored of meat cooked on a stick.

The wutai girl shook her head, "They're kinda bulky and heavy, something smaller may be good, but then there is no way to cook for everyone."

"I say just get metal water bottles to boil water in," Ralena commented. "This town doesn't really have a specialty shop for camping gear, so a pot designed to be portable might be hard to come by.

"What about the Mog?" Red asked.

"What about it?" Yuffie asked confused.

"I saw a compartment in it. Perhaps we can store it in there."

Tifa thought about it, they'd have to see how big it was first. "Let's keep that in mind, but not get anything until we can ask Cait Sith about it."

After a few shops, including the grocer where Yuffie insisted that spices can make all the difference. They had no leads on their 'friend in a black cape' the group dropped their purchases off in the ladies' Inn room. "So what now?" Yuffie asked, "Do we just wait around for Cloud and the others to get back?"

"If that's the case, I'd rather get Iris out for a walk."

"Ugh, pass!" Yuffie said, "We've been walking for, like, the past week."

"I'll go with you," Tifa said, "Yuffie, why don't you take advantage of the empty room and use that bubble bath I saw you buy."

The girl's face turned red, glad that Red XIII was the only male to hear it. "Oh, yeah… I guess I will… Yes! I will."

"What about you Nanaki?"

"Hmmm…" the feline looked out the window. "It is a nice day, I think I will follow you, until I find a place I like to lie down."

Bringing her new messenger bag with her, the empath treated the bird to some treats she had purchased before they led her out. They walked around the outside of edges of town. Red found a nice patch of flowers near a tree in case he got too hot. The girls laughed as he went to lay down among them. "That is adorable," Tifa muttered, a hand over her mouth.

They walked on, eventually coming around to a fenced in yard, Cloud's group was standing at the fence, looking at the plane within it. "ShinRa always keeps the best stuff for themselves, let's take it!"

"Take what Barret?" Tifa asked. The large man jumped and turned, seeing the two girls and chocobo walking up.

"That," He said gesturing to the plane.

Ralena made a face, "It's a bit small isn't it?" she asked, petting Iris as if to keep the bird from being offended.

"Well, we all can't fit on her either."

Before Ralena could respond a woman came out of the back of the house, "Ummm… may I help you?" She was a slightly older woman with glasses, messy brown hair pulled up into a pony tail, and a white coat.

"No…" Cloud said, a little embarrassed, "We were just looking at it."

" ...If you would like to use it, please ask the Captain." She ran her eyes over the group. "I'm Shera. What are your names?"

"I'm Cloud."

"I'm Barret, of AVALANCHE."

"I'm Aeris."

"Tifa. Nice to meet you."

"Fortune telling machine Cait Sith, here."

"Vincent. My occupation is... forget it."

"I'm Ralena and Vincent is accompanying me on my journey of self-discovery," the empath said in a faux cheery tone. Several members of her own group turned to stare at her. "What?" she responded, her voice returning to a more normal tone, "It sounds better than just saying I was wandering around like vagabond."

"Hmm... So you're not with the Shinra. I thought the approval for the reopening of the Space Program came." Several looks of surprise went to her. "I suppose you wouldn't have heard, President Rufus is scheduled to come today. The Captain's been so restless this morning…"

"Oh, so that explains it," Aerith said.

"Explains what?"

"We already went to the rocket," Cloud said, "He seemed a little…"

"Ornery." Vincent supplied. He similarly got a few looks for his choice of words.

"No, no…" Shera said, "That’s just his way. Why don't you all come inside and wait for the Captain I'm sure he'll be back soon. Then you can ask him about the Tiny Bronco."

There were a few shrugs and nods of agreement, "If it's all the same, I'll wait out here," Ralena said. "My girl needs to stretch her legs."

"I'll stay with you," Vincent said. Tifa and Aerith exchanged a look as they moved inside.

"Are you sure?" Shera asked, clearly not wanting to seem like a poor hostess.

"We'll be ok," Ralena reassured her with a friendly smile. As she leaned against the outside of the fence.

A minute after the woman went inside, Vincent spoke up, "You're real reason?"

"Nothing against her… the lab coat, kind of threw me off," The empath said, "Though it is true that Iris needs to roam." She scratched the bird under its chin. "Why don't you wander for a bit? Huh?" The bird warked happily then trotted off into the field behind the house. After another minute or so of watching her feathered friend she turned to Vincent, who hand taken to sitting on the fence. "Did you have something you wanted to talk about?"

"Cait Sith."

"What about him?"

"I don't trust it."

"Why not?"

He raised a brow at her, she could tell because it disappeared under his bandana. "As much as I appreciate their goals, this group is far too trusting. Cait Sith is an advanced, remote controlled robot. One that can even be controlled in remote areas."

"Oh… I see," when he laid out the facts like that it did point to one thing. She gave a helpless shrug, "Maybe he's stolen?" She clearly didn't have high hopes that it was the case.

Vincent sighed, "We can only hope."

"Did you bring it up to Cloud?"

"I only have suspicions," Vincent admitted, "I don't know enough to throw around accusations."

"So, what? You want me to keep an eye out too?"

He nodded, "If you would."

She felt a little bubble of joy for some reason, that he'd ask her to help with something. She didn't get much chance to analyzed it when-

"What're you doing out here!?" a man practically shouted. Startled by the noise, his irritation and anxiety was potent enough to trigger the woman's sixth sense. He was an older man, probably about the same age as Barrett, with short faded blonde hair. The scowl on his face was topped with aviator goggles and accented with a five o'clock shadow. "Ain't my house good enough for you?"

"It's not that," she replied, trying not to sound annoyed, "we're watching after my chocobo. See?" She made a whistle and the bird perked up and called back in her direction.

"Fine, fine," he grumbled, "This is why I like machines, you don't have to babysit them."

The redhead managed to bite her tongue and turn away from the pilot as he began to work on the plane. She turned off her senses, but every bang and noise that came from him sounded like it was angry, setting her nerves on edge.

"You don't have to stay," Vincent said, quietly enough to keep the other man from hearing.

"No… It's fine, I'm used to it."

He gave her a doubtful look.

"I've had a lot of practice hiding it. Controlling my reactions when I can't control my emotions. I'll be…" BANG BANG. She gritted her teeth, "fine."

After a minute the restless pilot walked away from the plane. "I'm gonna get Shera to bring out some of that tea she's makin'." The man said.

Neither bothered to protest as he went back into the house. It was only moments after that when Vincent turned to the sound of an engine approaching. They looked and saw a truck moving to park behind another yard a few houses away. "Is it…"

"ShinRa," Vincent nodded. "We'd best be on guard. They don't know you and I, so let's just watch for now."

Ralena whistled for her bird, who trotted over, the two walked out to meet her, moving away from the house to get a wider view of the scene. The troops were not especially wary, and they made a point of staying out of view of the residents. "Best go back to the stable, ok girl?" As the bird wandered off she asked, "What do you think is up with the soldiers?"

Vincent watched them for a moment, "Looks like a squad of 20, they are setting up a perimeter."

"What for?"

"Not sure yet."

Even a little ways back from the house, they heard Cid yelling from the front yard. The two stepped to try and see between the houses, trying to get a view of the activity. "Who's that?" She gestured with her head, as they spied an obese man in a tan suit approaching the Tiny Bronco.

"Doesn't look local," Vincent said, "Expensive suit, probably ShinRa."

The man seemed like he was looking around the plane examining it like a child with new complicated toy. They would have gone closer, we're it not for the soldiers closing in. They seemed intent on the yard, not them… yet. As the large man messed with something and the plane's propellers started spinning she turned to Vincent, "Should we…"

"Hey!" Cloud and the others came out of the back of the house. "We'll be taking the Tiny Bronco."

Vincent mentally cursed as the exchange went forward. Though he was surprised that it wasn't Cloud, but the man, Palmer, who instigated the fight. Rather quickly calling for the nearby troops when he recognized several members of Avalanche. Not sure what else to do, Ralena opened up by casting Barrier spells as the troops rushed in. As she and Vincent weren't in the yard with the fat man, they were initially overlooked as threats.

That proved to be a mistake for at least one of them. Vincent leveled his gun at one in the back and the man dropped like a marionette whose strings had been cut. There was a moment where Ralena froze, she had never fought other people in lethal combat before. Vincent seemed to recognize the moment for what it was. "If you can disarm or maim, do it. Otherwise keep up the barriers."

She was a little miffed at herself for the reality of it. But for now she would do what she could. She could let Vincent handle the dirty work, as long as she did_ something_. Rushing into the back of the troops, careful not to get into Barret's cross fire she began to use her blades to relieve soldiers of their guns or hamstring them. Anything to temporarily ruin their ability to shoot straight. Several of them caught well placed bullets that she would think about later. After a few exchanges she pulled back to Vincent's location. Giving the Shiva summon room to work, assessing the battle field, most of the troops were down, but surprisingly Palmer was still up… and apparently agile. Sheathing her blades she turned to Vincent, "Help them finish off the big guy, I've got an idea."

She bolted off, scooping up her bag, before the gunman had a chance to respond. He reloaded, then running forward, shot at the large man before jumping the fence. In his attempt to dodge Cloud, the man was grazed by the shot. "Ohhh you.." he said. Apparently the man's suit was well armored, and someone was maintaining a barrier on him nearby. An object landed in front on Vincent, thrown by one of the remaining troops. He kicked it, but it didn't get far before it exploded.

There was a grunt of pain, which morphed into a roar.

Before the smoke cleared the Galian Beast erupted from the smoke and pounced onto the fat man, who screamed. Several rounds went into the beast from the remaining troopers. Aerith did her best to heal the damage as Cloud and Tifa jumped back over the fence to finish off the troops. Cait Sith summoned forth a row of toy soldiers to assist while Barret tried to figure out where Palmer's healing had come from.

Screaming as he was, Palmer wasn't a man who wanted to die. He managed to get his Mako gun against the beast and fired multiple shots into its gut. It slumped onto him, and fell over. Aerith cried out and the fat man decided to run for it.

He made it only a few feet past the fence when a large ShinRa truck came out of nowhere and slammed into the man before skidding to a stop. "Whoa, I think he bounced…" Ralena muttered from behind the wheel. Turning to the house she saw the slumped purple beast evaporating into the form of her friend. "Vincent!"

She ran to his side, as Tifa jumped onto the plane, trying to get to the controls. "I can't stop it!" she shouted.

"Forget it," Cloud shouted, "Get in!" He ran towards their fallen comrade, with the clear intent to help get him on the plane. But another round of troops came around from the front of the house, firing freely, forcing him to block with his sword. Ralena cast Barrier on herself and moved between the gunfire and Vincent. Cloud attempted to move towards them, but the plane was still moving the other way, they were running out of time.

"Get out of here!" She yelled.

"What about you!?" Cloud shouted back.

"We'll figure it out, just go!"

Gritting his teeth in self-loathing, Cloud ran for the plane.

With the redhead not fighting and the other man down, all fire was directed towards the plane as it wheeled around in the air. She managed a quick healing spell on him, but with her concentration scattered it was barely good enough to bring him back to consciousness. The Tiny Bronco flew off, smoke trailing from a wing. She saw it fly out of her sight and turned back to Vincent who had somehow pulled himself into a kneeling position.

She began to gather the energy needed for another cure spell when she heard a gun cock uncomfortably nearby. Wisps of green energy faded from her hand, unused. Slowly she turned her head to look. A sawed off shotgun barrel was the first thing she noticed, held by a blonde man around her age. He wore a white suit and had a demeanor of calm superiority, but she didn't need her abilities to see how irritated he was.

"Miss, you do realize it is a crime to steal a vehicle in order to use it to hit a ShinRa executive don't you?"

She glanced around at the troopers who also had their weapons trained on her, then back to the man, "And you are?"

Blue eyes narrowed at her. She had a feeling that his pride was hurt when she honestly didn't know who he was. "I'm Rufus, President of ShinRa Inc. And you are coming with us."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Authors Notes:  
Seriously, in the game WHO is driving that truck?


	5. Back to ShinRa, Inc

While guards stood over them, Ralena had seen Nanaki stalking closer. Given the number of recovered guards and the gun barrel uncomfortably close to her head. She did her best to convey that he should just back off without making overt actions. She wasn't sure if she communicated properly, or if the cat had come to the same conclusion, but she saw his ears go flat in displeasure.

Once the chase for the Tiny Bronco was given up for lost. Ralena and a barely conscious Vincent were stripped of their weapons and materia and thrown into the back of the truck she had attempted to Hijack. The troops who rode in the back with them were less than considerate of Vincent's injuries and the tall man spent most of the time fading in and out of consciousness. The healing that she managed had only been enough to bring him from death's door, he was hardly in fighting condition. She supposed she couldn’t blame them, there were definitely more empty seats in the truck then there should have been. After all, Phoenix Down could bring a person back from the brink of death, but there was a point where it was useless. Like being dead for too long or severe injuries, such as missing part of your skull…

She didn't know if Vincent could transform in his current condition, but she was sure if he did, he would end up dead. So she tried to keep him calm, still unsure of how much her attempts mattered. She resisted the urge to stroke his hair or face. He didn't seem to be a touchy person, so she didn't think he would find it comforting. She simply cradled his head in her lap, and had one hand across his chest, holding his shoulder to keep him from being jostled too much. Her other hand rested on his forehead, her thumb just resting beneath his head wrap, skin-to-skin contact seemed to make it so that she could focus her empathy on him more directly. It was another thing she had done on accident in the past, and hadn't ever done intentionally. She did her best to impart upon him a faint sense of peace. She didn't want to go too far, her Mako green eyes were strange enough, and she knew they would glow much brighter the more she exerted her will. She didn't know how long the trip would be either and she had never intentionally used her abilities for more than a few minutes at a time.

When they arrived at Nibelheim early the next morning, apparently to be transferred to some helicopters, they denied her request for first aid supplies, since they clearly weren't going to give her the Cure materia back.

She did the best she could, sitting on his injured right side and guarding it from being jabbed by infantry guns. It was later that evening when they arrived at ShinRa tower. Waiting for them on the helipad was a fresh set of troops and a large man with a long black beard and a green officer's uniform. She could only assume all of the accessories he wore meant he was important.

They were escorted off the roof to an elevator then a cell. Ralena was half dragging Vincent for a minute before the man in the suit all but yelled at one of the troops to assist, because he said he didn't have the time to wait.

They were barely in the cell for five minutes when she was pulled out for questioning.

****

Vincent slowly opened his eyes to see a concrete ceiling above him. Between the mako gun wound and the rough treatment he had received afterwards he had been going in and out of consciousness for the better part of 36 hours at least. For the first time since Rocket Town, he wasn't in a moving vehicle and he was alone. Hojo's laughter and the sound of a gunshot was still reverberated through his brain. Shaking off the dream, he tried to sit up and his head swam for the effort in concert with pain sparking through his torso. His skull throbbed, from a rifle butt if he remembered right, he also remembered feeling a pulse of Ralena’s anger when that had happened.

Lying back down, he decided to assess what he could from there before trying to sit up again. It was a small concrete cell, roughly 6 by 10 feet, the door was metal with a small grated window at eye level and a slot at the bottom. Opposite that was a small sink and toilet. He had to figure out where he was and how to get out. Once he did that, he could see about finding Ralena.

Wincing again he realized it didn't appear as though they had any intent to treat his wounds, which was not surprising if torture and interrogation was going to be on the docket. New first priority, tending his wounds. Naturally the ShinRa soldiers took all of their materia, so mundane methods would have to do.

He had managed to his jacket off when the cell door opened and another person was tossed inside, followed by a small pouch.

"No, it's ok," she said sarcastically as the door slammed shut, "I'll go first."

"Ralena?"

"Vincent? You're alright!" she got up and sat down beside him, her tousled hair shadowing her face.

"That," he groaned, "is quite debatable."

She noticed him grab his side, "Let me take care of that." She looked around on the floor and opened the parcel. "This is barely a first aid kit… but at least we got something." she sighed.

"Where are we?"

"The ShinRa HQ in Midgar. We're on one of the upper floors, I think the 65th.” She lifted his shirt and looked at his wound, the Mako gun had gone through his flesh and left severe burns as well. She sucked breath in through her teeth, "Ohh, this looks bad… but not as bad as I expected."

"I believe I heal faster than normal," he winced, "But not that fast apparently…" If this was partially healed, she hated to think what it would have looked like fresh. If it wasn't treated properly, or magically healed relatively soon, then the scarring would be pretty bad.

She took a cloth from the kit and wet it in the sink. "Lay down so I can treat this better." He did as she asked, holding his left arm over his face and out of the way. She worked in silence as he pondered their situation.

Cleaning the wound, she noticed a few long surgical scars along his torso and one from a bullet. She made a point of not saying anything about it, sure they were left by Hojo, and Vincent probably didn't need the reminder. If it hadn't been for Hojo's tendency to use potions and healing spells to speed her recovery, she would have had more. After all, there were some tests she couldn't perform if she were injured. She had at least one notable set, perfectly parallel lines Hojo had applied in four consecutive years on either side of her waist. Made with the intent to see if her rate of healing was faster than a normal person's. The left side looked better, it had been properly treated, stitched and cared for, but her right had only been disinfected and bandaged, not stitched. "There," she said finally, "All done." Going to the sink, she began to clean out the rag.

"When did you last sleep?"

"Sleep… or sleep well?" he could hear the dry humor in her voice, echoing the answer she gave him Nibelheim.

"You should lay down," he said, "You must be tired."

She shook her head, "I am, but you're injured, you should keep the bed." As she turned away, to clean up the kit, he noticed something and grabbed her arm. She winced and he let go.

"Look at me," he asked after a moment.

"I'm fine," she said, sitting beside him, from her tone it was clearly not the case.

Trying not to twist his body, he pulled her hair away from her face, tucking it behind an ear, revealing the bruises her scarlet lock has hidden. "Questions?" he asked knowingly. He found himself pushing down some anger at this fact. Not just at the ShinRa, but at the fact that he knew all of these procedures, and that once upon a time he had done it himself.

She nodded. He gestured for the kit and reluctantly she handed it and the rinsed out rag to him. "I'm not sure if it's fortunate that we barely know the others or not."

"Depends on who is asking the questions."

"A nasty blonde in a red dress," Ralena replied, "She didn't have too much patience. I swear, I am almost insulted that she thought _slapping _me would get me to talk. I mean, Hojo did way worse with some of his tests." He touched a wound on her cheek with the wet cloth and she hissed but didn't recoil, when she opened her eyes again they were glowing. "Lights are on," he warned, not wanting to say something that anyone overhearing could make sense of.

For a moment she was confused, then she realized what he meant. She was about to try and shut off her senses, but something found its way in first. Unlike other visions she had in the past, this one was crystal clear as the door opened and someone was tossed inside. "If you continue to misbehave, we'll put you in a closet next time."

The small form tried to get up and threw herself at the now shut door, a blue chocobo doll momentarily forgotten on the floor. "No, please, this one is sorry!" With the metal sound of the window cover sliding shut, the lights went out on the girl, though in reality their cell remained lit. "No please," she whimpered, "not the lights… I just wanted to see the sky."

Her breath hitched, and she almost choked on budding tears. "No," she whispered, "no, no, no, not here"

Vincent quickly, but gingerly, moved to kneel in front of her. "What is it? What happened?"

"This is the dark room," she said the name with a child's fear and reverence. "This is where they put me, in the dark, when I didn't cooperate." Sometimes Hojo had left her there for days. Vincent could see her regressing, getting lost in memories that, for once, were her own. Her expression began to take on a child-like quality.

He cupped her face gently with a hand, "Ralena, look at me, focus." She did as he asked. "You need to shut it down alright? Do you have anything you did when you were afraid? A song, a mantra, anything?"

She shook her head, she couldn't think, couldn't remember not feeling afraid in this room. Except once. “This.. this is where he first found me.”

"Focus on that then, lay down and close your eyes and think about him. When your eyes are closed, the dark doesn't matter."

"But-"

He shook his head, "I will be fine for a little while."

In her child-like mentality she did as she was instructed. It didn't take long for her to fall asleep. Not surprisingly she curled up into a ball, leaving plenty of room for him to sit. He draped his cloak over her and wondered if she had slept at all since their capture. He couldn't imagine that an ability like hers was easy to control when one was exhausted. He stood and looked out of the window into the hall, studying the other doors and what he could see. No guards in the hall, key cards to open the locks. He would stay awake a while longer, hoping to hear when patrols might happen, and if talking guards would give him any other clues.

***

Aerith looked up at the early morning sky and the mountains of Wutai, hands stroking the blue feathers of the chocobo. Without it's master, the bird apparently decided to follow the last other person to ride her, which happened to be Aerith. She had finished her role in packing up camp and while she waiting on the others she was seeing to the needs of the chocobo.

"You ok?" the voice was Cloud's, she turned back to look at him.

"I'm fine," she nodded, "I'm just worried about Ralena and Vincent." At the sound of her master's name, Iris perked up and looked around. Leading to the Cetra giving her more apologetic pettings. They had been captured two days ago now, but there was little that they could do from their current position.

"Yeah," he said, settling on the opposite side of the bird. "Red XIII said Rufus got the drop on them before Vincent could recover, it didn't look like fighting was a good option at the time." The group had come back around to pick up the others, but had been surprised to find only Yuffie and Red XIII waiting for them.

"Do you think they’re back at ShinRa Tower by now?" Aerith asked. Her only consolation in this matter was the knowledge that Hojo had gone AWOL and wouldn't be getting his claws back into the redhead anytime soon.

Cloud shrugged, "Hard to say, they have prison cells at Junon too. They could have taken them to either place."

"Any idea how we can find out? I would like to try and save them."

Cloud sighed, they were on the opposite sides of the world right now, chasing Sephiroth, searching for clues on the Promised Land and on the run from ShinRa, never mind the fact that Yuffie took off with their materia yesterday. Two of their number, though people they hadn't known very long, were in the heart of enemy territory. "I think we have to multi-task. Keep an eye on the news for where Rufus shows up next, Junon or Midgar, that's probably where they'll have been taken. On the way in that direction we can try to find out what we can about the Promised Land and Sephiroth." He gritted his teeth, “He might have to take a backseat for a while.”

"Do you think they'll be ok?"

"I'm not sure about Ralena, you talked to her more than I did. But I'm pretty sure Vincent can handle it."

"Why do you say that?" Aerith grinned, as the bird now scrutinized Cloud for speaking the name. "Because of his serious demeanor?"

He shook his head, waving the bird off from grooming his feather-like spiked hair. "Because of the way he carried himself. The way he held his gun and didn't speak unless he felt it needed being said." He looked back to the flower girl, "I'm not knocking Ralena's skills, but he's had a whole different sort of training."

"What? Like a SOLDIER?"

He shook his head, pushing the bird away from his face. "No, he said he used to be a Turk."

Aerith thought back to the man, as Cloud had spent less time with the redhead, Aerith had similarly spent less time with the stoic man. But there were aspects of his behavior that reminded her of Tseng. "I could see that."

*****

Reeve was examining the latest material he had to update the Avalanche member's dossiers. The poorly rendered images of Vincent and Ralena from the Cait Sith unit were being supplemented with poorly taken pictures of them after capture, bad lighting, artistic angles. The infantry men were useless for this sort of thing, whoever had taken the pictures clearly didn't understand that the point was to be able to identify them, not show what a good job the troops had done. At least the marketing team might make use of some of these.

For now Reeve decided to keep the link between Ralena and Hojo to himself. Hell, he didn't really know their connection, just that she said she had probably being a test subject. Either way Hojo was… on sabbatical? Reeve was unsure as to whether or not the scientist had abandoned the company or if this was just one of his whims. He supposed the company was giving him a little leeway. With all of the chaos in the leadership change, his absence just meant one less thing to deal with.

As far as Avalanche was concerned, Reeve thought they were all mad. They trusted so easily, they were getting painted as the villain by ShinRa, they weren't getting rich and yet they continued on with what was honestly shaping up to be a nearly impossible task. The last sighting they had of Sephiroth was the redhead seeing him as the base of Mt. Nibel almost a week ago. Now they were in Wutai chasing down one of their own.

He found himself looking at a photo of the captives in the back of the ShinRa truck, Ralena cradling her sleeping companions head in her lap. Her hair covered a good portion of her features, but the set line of her mouth definitely showed her concern. This was one of the few things he understood about these people.

They were loyal to each other.

Loyalty was very important to the ShinRa. Loyalty and competence. Do your job, do it well, get paid, get praise, get perks. He sighed, and get 'rewarded' with additional assignments that took up massive amounts of time while still getting the rest of your work done.

The other members of Avalanche were worried about two captives as well, but they didn't know what to do. He looked at another image of Ralena glaring at a troop who was prodding a slumped Vincent forward as she tried to help him.

_He_ could do something… technically it was possible.

But was it worth it? Was helping these idiots with their lost cause mission to 'save the planet' worth what he would risk?

He found himself watching the footage of the fight at the cabin again. The look on Yuffie's face as Vincent was thrown aside like a ragdoll. The way Tifa rushed over to take attention away from the fallen man. Cloud's, and everyone else's, acceptance of the man's berserker limit break…

He sighed, this was pointless. He knew what he was, he was a spy, he was loyal to ShinRa.

He was a coward who hid behind a toy cat.

***

Food eventually came, after a fashion, several trail mix bars and two pouches of some kind of pudding. Vincent ate one but otherwise put them aside, not wanting to wake Ralena just yet. Even asleep Ralena still looked exhausted. The guard was curt, but there were no other stops, leading Vincent to conclude that they were the only current prisoners. This suited him fine, if they managed an escape he wouldn’t have to worry about convincing het to leave other people behind.

Eventually the lights in the cell went off, only the light coming in from the hall remained. Shortly after that was when he began to hear soft sobs. Unsure what to do, he moved to kneel down beside her. Her eyes were half open and glowing green, whatever it was she saw, he was invisible to her.

"It hurts," she whimpered like a frightened child, "I don't want to be here anymore. This one doesn't like the mean man with the glasses. I don't like the tank...."

Tentatively he sat her up and held her against his chest on his uninjured left side, she clung to him and continued crying quietly. It was awkward for him, trying to settle his gauntleted left arm against her. But his comfort wasn't the concern right now, but he couldn't imagine the metal resting on her back would feel good, assuming she even noticed..

He believed this was more than one memory coming out of her mouth. This was years of torment coming together into one stream of consciousness rant. A few times she cried for her family, or Sephiroth. She wanted to go home, back to the woods where she had been a happy child. Waves of her emotions washed over him. These were feelings he was familiar with from his nightmares, just in different proportions. Right now there was nothing to do but let her cry.

****

Today had been a bad day…

The silver haired man was a loss for what to do. It was one time she refused to answer the question of how she was, when he sat down beside her, she had pulled back and tried to stay under the covers. "Are you ok?"

"This one is fine," she replied dully, not letting him see more than the top of her scarlet head.

Sure that something was wrong, Sephiroth had pulled the blanket away from her face. He saw partly healed bruises spotting her temples, neck and arms. That was the dark side of a world with healing magic, you rarely had to worry about killing a torture victim and could do it multiple times a day. He knew the placement of those marks.

Pain tolerance testing.

He, Genesis and Angel had been through it several times before. It was barbaric, and probably pointless. But to Hojo it was all data. Sephiroth had almost lost his voice at the realization that she had endured such torment, "Ralena, are you…"

That was several minutes ago, she had thrown herself against him and had been crying since. The fact that he was hit by feelings that he wasn't familiar with didn't help. Frustration he could understand, but the fear and helplessness were things he wasn't sure how to handle, so he just held her awkwardly and let her cry.

"I don't want to be here anymore! I don't want to be drugged!" she cried, when she was able to speak again. "I want to go outside! I want to see the sky again! I… I... I just want to go home..."

"Where is home?" he asked when she eased up a bit later.

"Gone…" she said slowly, "Burned down in a forest fire, before we were moved to Midgar."

There was several more minutes where neither spoke, eventually she pulled herself away and wiped her face, "It doesn't matter, he'll never let me go. I'm his precious control. A 'comparative study'…"

"A comparison to what?" he asked.

"This one doesn't know," she shrugged, hopeless resignation plain in her voice.

It was that day Sephiroth realized that his sword was useless. He could do almost nothing for the girl. He could not protect her from Hojo, he could not take her where the bastard could not reach. There was nothing he could do for her that would last. So he sat there, letting her lean against him, talking sadly about the life she barely remembered but wanted to return to until she fell asleep.

*****

Ralena had fallen back asleep and Vincent felt useless. This was what doing nothing had resulted in. Years of inaction, years of sleep wallowing in regret and self-pity. For what? Penance? He certainly didn't feel absolved. If anything he felt as though he had added a number of half sins on his plate.

When he had been on protection detail for the science team he hadn't done anything then either. He had used his ignorance of the projects and the ideals of doing his duty as an excuse. He had listened to Lucrecia's words when she said it was what she wanted, not her voice or her eyes. He had done nothing about Hojo for nearly thirty years. How many people had suffered for it?

"Don't worry," he said quietly, his own eyes glowing red in the dark. "I will make Hojo pay for what he's done."


	6. Escaping The Rotting Pizza

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In the original version, this entire chapter was about 1 page at the start of Chapter 2 followed by, "They made it out of Midgar later that day." No such luck Fuckers!
> 
> Also I will likely be slowing down my posting schedule after this - I am aiming for once a week. Probably Fridays, I haven't decided yet.

"How long will they hold us here?" Ralena asked Vincent while she was leaning against the door, "Since I woke up hardly a soul has been by."

"Interrogation tactic," he answered simply, "Depends on how much they think we know and how busy they are. I overheard from the guards that the Turks are out of town."

"And is that good?"

"It could go either way. The Turks are better at conning people out of information without resorting to physical torture, but they are also better at tracking people down."

"So if we want to escape, we should do it while they are gone..."

He nodded.

She thought a moment longer, "Vincent, how well do you think, 'please help, my friend is dying' will work?" He could tell by her tone that she was almost embarrassed to ask.

He chuckled, "I doubt the guards are that foolish."

"But what if..."

He tilted his head slightly, waiting for her to continue.

"What if I told you that I could _project_ emotions too?" His questioning expression led her to elaborate. "I've used it on your limit break a couple times. I'm not very good at it, so there is a good chance you'll feel it too. But if I make him feel panic, or concern, maybe the guard will open the door."

When she had done it last night while she was crying, he thought it was just a fluke, something she couldn't replicate. He thought on it, as far as the guards were concerned, they were high value prisoners. Keeping them alive was important. If the guard bought it he would either open the door, or go get a medic. If he came back with a medic, there would also be a few additional guards incoming. Vincent was the injured one, so he would start off prone or sitting. They would only have to get passed the first single guard or group, four at most. She said before that she had seen their belongings put in a locker in the guard room, if they were lucky they were still there. At the very least he would have the guards' guns. "How are your hand-to-hand skills?"

She shrugged, "Not great, I spent most time learning the blades, but I've got pent up frustration and desperation working for me."

He grinned in spite of himself.

****

They had her practice evoking emotion in Vincent, at first she had to take his word that she was effecting him, but near the end of an hour she had at least gotten the stoic man's expression to change. He assured her that it was sufficient, perhaps what Hojo had done to him made him less easy to affect. "Well either way, I hope a rookie is on shift…"

In case there were cameras in the cell Vincent hadn't found, they spent some time going through the motions of her checking on his wounds and him slumping further. After a sufficient time doing that, and Ralena having rested her power for a bit. Vincent sat slumped on the bed, back against the wall and his head angled away from the door. Ralena took a deep breath and ran to the window of the cell, "Help!" she cried, the panic in her voice sounding genuine, he wondered if she was able to trick herself. "Someone, please help!"

It took another cry for help before he heard the door at the end of the hall open. Then the wave came, desperation must have made her turn up the volume, the sudden concern he felt almost made him twitch. He decided to go with it, twitching looked unhealthy.

"What is it?" the guard asked.

Her eyes were wide, panicked, and wet with tears. "Please help! I think he's dying!" Her voice was a panicked pitch, and urgency layered on top of concern.

He looked through the window and saw the slumped and slightly twitching form of Vincent. The guard's eyes widened, "Step back," he said, as a little bit of panic found its way to his voice.

"He's gotten so pale," her voice was shaky, nervousness that she didn't have to conjure up, pouring in. "I… I'm not sure he's breathing."

The guard leaned down to get a better look at Vincent's face and a brass clad left hook greeted him, followed instantly by a punch to the gut. Not a moment's rest, the former Turk grabbed the man by the helmet and slammed his head against the opposite cell wall twice for good measure before he let him slump to the floor. With practiced ease he stripped the guard of his weapons and searched him for any key cards, ignoring the pain screaming from his injured side. When he turned back to her she was smiling and wiping tears away. "I could've been a great actress," she joked.

"Not a dry eye in the house," he said coolly, taking the guard's side arm.

She blinked her eyes off and back on again, "I'm going to try and keep the other one from reacting."

From her direction he felt a kind of tired apathy washed over him. "Try not to overdo it," he said, "We have a lot of running to do and we'll need all of our wits about us."

She nodded and they started down the hall. They opened the door and the other guard had his back to them, "So, what did they try?" he asked flatly, "'My friend is dying?'"

"Yes," Vincent said cocking the gun. The guard turned to face him as she immediately headed to the locker, swiping the key card. She gave a sigh of relief as the locker opened and revealed what seemed to be all of their gear.

"You know those are only filled with stun rounds." The guard said.

"Perfect," Vincent replied and put three such rounds in the guards torso, leaving him a twitching unconscious mass on the ground, "They make less noise." He liberated this guard of his gear and key card, meanwhile Ralena had equipped her materia, quietly casting a cure spell on him then herself. He dragged the other guard into the cell, the unmanned post would be suspicious, but it was better than an unconscious guard. When he came back out she passed him his gun and ammo pouches. He checked and loaded it while walking to the door to check the hall.

"Really?" he heard her mutter in disbelief after a minute. He looked at her confused and she gestured to a frame on the wall, "They put a fire escape diagram in the cell block?"

"Safety first," he grinned.

They studied the map for a moment. He pointed to a small room, partway to the stairs, "Probably a supply closet, we'll stop in here briefly before heading to the stairs."

She was confused, but didn't question it. The way he had dealt with the guards and moved during this part of the escape clearly put him in his element and she would be damned if she got in his way. He removed the metal sabatons from to boots and handed them to her to stow in her bag before a quick test to ensure that his steps were, indeed, quieter. Then he took his bandana off and began the task of tying back his hair into lower profile pony tail. He gestured to her hair, "We can't change our look much, but try to look more normal." She followed his lead and began to tie her long red locks into a bun then stripped off her vest and removed her hide bracers and greaves. Taking his gun and her sword, he wrapped them in his cloak, which he attempted to hold more like carrying a business coat over his left arm. Her sword made it awkward, from the proper angle it was fine, but from the other side… Her at least her dagger fit in her bag too.

Thankfully it was a quiet hop down the hallway, only passing one man who was busy talking on his phone. They made it to the closet and slipped in. He gestured for her to listen at the door while he dug around the cleaning supplies. She held up a hand as she heard two pairs of footsteps coming closer, Vincent ceased his rummaging as heels and thick soled shoes approached and the conversation in the hall became understandable. "…ere been any word on Hojo, Tseng?"

The pair shared a look at the name.

"No Ma'am," came the professional reply, "The last visible contact of him was in Costa Del Sol a little over two weeks ago, since then we've had no leads."

The footsteps stopped not long passed their door. The empath suppressed a curse. "Damn, he's about as hard to find as Sephiroth and Strife's little crew."

"Actually, the other Turks said they may have seen Avalanche in Wutai yesterday."

Ralena stiffened and cast a worried glance towards Vincent.

"What!? Why didn't they say anything!? He's got the Ancient with him!" The woman demanded.

The reply was in a tone of utmost respect and courtesy, yet somehow lacked them at the same time, "I'm sorry Scarlet, they're on vacation."

The woman scoffed, and started walking again, "Let's talk about this with Heidegger in my office, then we'll see to those prisoners Rufus brought back with him."

"Yes ma'am."

Once the steps had faded off enough, Vincent returned to the cleaning supplies. He was arranging them in a fashion that was confusing to her until she realized he had planned to start a fire.

While he was working she briefly cataloged his features, with his hair pulled back, and cloak off she had a clear look at him for the first time. Suddenly realizing that she had never managed it before. He really was quite good looking, with angular features and a strong chin. She noted two vertical scars that went halfway down his forehead over the center of his eyes, another pair, perpendicular to those, went along his hair line. That stark reminder refocused her attention to detecting people in the hall. Closing her eyes, she put a hand against the door and tried to stretch her senses outward.

After another minute she looked back at his progress and realized he had somehow managed it so that there would be a delay between the them leaving and the fire starting. He had ripped a power cord out of a vacuum, stripped and exposed the wires and plugged it in, making sure there was a spark. He was ready to put the cord in contact with a cleaning rag on the lower shelf.

He gave her a gesture to check the hall again and she stretched out her senses once more. She was still getting used to the idea of using her power as a way to detect people. People were about, but she couldn't tell how many or if office doors were closed. Or even how many were on the neighboring floors. She gave up quickly, now that they were ready to leave the room, it wasn't worth the risk, though she vowed to work on it later. A slight peak out and she confirmed that no one was in the hall. Vincent dropped the sparking wire on the cloth, kicked over some liquid that smelled flammable on the floor and the two made their way to the staircase.

They were around the 32nd floor when the fire alarm went off. She wished they would have had time to grab someone else's jackets, but as it was, they had done the best they could without risking undue attention. Somehow they managed their way out the stairs with throngs of ShinRa employees, listening to their chatter.

"Do you think this is a drill?"

"I bet somebody just burned their popcorn or something…"

"It's almost the end of the day, maybe I'll just go home once we get down stairs."

She was so happy that no one thought this was a real emergency. The tight quarters of the stairwell would have made it difficult to block out that much panic.

When they were out of the building, they maintained a casual walking speed, working their way towards one of the maintenance access doors . They passed a few people, some of whom were discussing the smoke, "Are you sure that's not smog?"

Then the loud speakers crackled on and they hurried their pace. "All ShinRa employees DO NOT leave, we have escaped prisoners on the loose. I repeat, you must wait for clearance to leave." And with that, any hope they had of resting after all of those stairs, was shattered.

****

When the announcement came out about the fugitives Reeve was a little confused that he had actually felt good about that fact. Truthfully, when compared to his peers at ShinRa Ralena was a pleasure to interact with, and Vincent… well at least he had never talked down to him.

In the meantime he had thought of a way he could be helpful to the group as a whole. Afterall, he had so much other work and the intelligence reports on Avalanche were his job...

****

Ralena and Vincent had managed a few minutes to reset their gear on one of the many catwalks that wove through the pipes of the massive utility facilities that fed the tower. They had tucked themselves behind one of the pieces of metal and stayed silent as they heard booted feet enter through the door they had come in. Vincent looked over the railing, down the twisted maze of metal that was easily a hundred feet deep, he pointed down.

She gave him a look and with a flash of green eyes, he felt her exasperation, had she risked speaking he was sure she would have simply said, "_Really!?_"

He nodded grimly, certain she would go along anyway as her eyes faded back to normal. She pointed to a nearby ladder, and he nodded again. There was a lot of vertical movement ahead of them, may as well take the easy options while they could.

They hadn't gone far when a door they hadn't noticed opened up to reveal a small group of troops near them. There was a beat of surprise from both groups broken by Vincent who shot the man in front. Another six men poured into the room and, powered by desperation, Ralena pulled her blades and charged in, disarming one, spinning around and slicing another one on the upper arm. This time she would not hesitate like she had in Rocket town. She didn't have time to worry about dealing out non-lethal injuries, she wouldn't pull a strike for fear or cutting open an artery. She would just do the best she could in the moment. When they were safe she could cry about it if she needed to.

The troops hadn't been prepared for a fight. They expected to hold up their guns and get an easy surrender. The two fugitives barely gave them the chance to bring their weapons to bear. The fencer focused on disarming them or injuring their limbs as the gunman went for the kill taking focused shots at the less armored portions of their uniforms.

They had nearly incapacitated the troops among them when a rain of bullets hailed down from above. Without being asked, the redhead cast Barrier spells on them as Vincent dove and grabbed a canister from one of the troops. Pulling a pin he threw it up to the firing squad. A loud bang and a bright flash of light was followed by shouts and a pause in the gunfire. Vincent holstered his gun, so she sheathed her blades in kind, running towards the railing he ripped a spare clip off of one of the fallen troops and she grabbed her bag. She met him next to the railing and her stomach dropped when she heard the next word leave his mouth. "Jump."

Swallowing the lump of dread and excitement in her throat, she nodded and followed his lead.

***

She was a genius.

She would run these guys around town until they gave up, and then she would have all of this materia for Wutai. Then she could restore it to its former glory! What she had told the others before locking them in the cage was true. She hated what had become of her country, and Yuffie had no intention of giving the materia back.

Even if she did feel kinda bad about it…

Oh well, she was sure she'd get over it. She looked up as the door opened, had they found this spot already? A large round man walk in followed by two goons, one of whom held a suited woman over his shoulder. "Hey who the heck are you?" she asked.

"Ohh hi, hi, hi. You're cute too!"

"What are you? Hey!" the goon closed in on her the moment the word "cute" escaped his lips. Yuffie quickly realized that this day was _not_ going to go as she had planned.

***

The two of them wound their way down and around catwalks, girders and pipes. At first because they did not want to get shot and were trying to avoid the various troops and security robots. Then because they couldn't find their way out of the masses of metal they had found themselves in. The sounds of pursuing troops died down after they were about five levels down, but both knew they were still in hot water.

Almost literally.

In addition to the possibility of falling, other dangers came in the form of steam vents and unlabeled pipes that were burning hot. They had received several minor burns before learning the signs of a hot pipe. Hours later, drenched in sweat and steam, they found an access gate that led out into an alley in the slums. They caught a short break while they waited for a train to pass overhead. As it did, using the noise as cover, he shot out the lock on the access gate and they crept out into the alleyway.

The air was far from clean, but at least it was cooler.

She pointed to a dumpster and he nodded. Until they knew where they were and if pursuit was nearby, they didn't want to make too much noise. Even with all of the sounds of the busy foot traffic in the street. They crouched down next to the dumpster and he held out his hand indicating 5 minutes, a grateful sigh escaped her lips and she sat down, trying to take deep, slow breaths. She had good endurance, but the heightened pace they had been going at for the last several hours was more than she was used to. She was used to running, she could run all day, but climbing and jumping was entirely different. It wasn't just the activity either, but the heat. She was physically exhausted, and now she had to deal with being around… so many… people.

He kept a sharp eye out as they rested. They could probably take the time to come up with a game plan before heading out again. They had to get out of the city as quickly and as possible while avoiding ShinRa police. Midgar had changed so much since Vincent had gone to Nibelheim. The massive plates, the amount of people and the machinery and the smell, it was all so much _more_ than it had been the last time he was here.

The tunnels were too much of a labyrinth to travel the whole way, but the pair's appearance was conspicuous as well. Vincent scanned the area for resources, points of entry and paths of escape. After another minute he realized that he still heard Ralena panting. He looked to her confused, he knew that she had enough stamina that she should have recovered by now. Sitting next to him on the ground she was leaned forward, one hand clutching the front of her shirt, nearly hyperventilating. Her face looked flush and her eyes were shut tight.

Not wanting to make too much noise he put a hand on her shoulder and turned her to face him, giving her a concerned look. Shock came to him when he saw her eyes were glazed, distant, and glowing bright green. "Ralena," he whispered, "what's wrong?"

She managed to turn her gaze on him, her eyes dimming for a second "Vincent, I, I can't, I can't-" The glow came back full force and she giggled as an almost drunken smile graced her lips, "You're so handsome..."

He blinked, where had that come from?

She fell forward, her arms attempting to go around his neck, had he not caught her, she likely would've fallen face first on the ground. She giggled a little before muttering, her head tilted back sharply to look at him, "My hero."

What was wrong with her? She sounded drunk, no... more like drugged, had she been hit with a dart he didn't notice? Maybe she inhaled someth-

Suddenly her arms tightened around his neck and hot lips pressed themselves against his. Off balance, he lost his kneeling position and his back hit the wall. Reflexively his arms tightened around her to secure her from falling. This only encouraged her more. She deepened the kiss, opening her mouth slightly to try and slip her tongue between his lips. Some long sleeping part of him growled as she did her best to press her entire body against his. Eventually, she release his mouth and leaned further forward. "Let's find somewhere more private," she whispered huskily in his ear. His eyes began to shut. "I'm sure there's a little spot nearby."

Something clicked in his brain, refocusing he pulled away from her and risked a peek out to the street, taking in the signs he hadn't bothered to read and realization struck him.

Oh, hell.

A red light district.

They were in a red light district. She was high on the atmosphere of the place. A whole section of the town built around one thing, one experience, every day for years, and it looked like prime business hours on top of it. It was probably too much for her, he almost let his thoughts distract him as she pulled his face back towards her to kiss him again. He put a finger over her lips to still her, she pouted and leaned back a bit. He was suddenly grateful for her vest. Her wet, white shirt currently hid much less than intended. Patches of skin color showed through the clinging fabric. He caught a glimpse of black ink on her arm and had to remind himself that her powers could push her feelings onto him as well. He had to remain focused on the mission, even if the sight of her glistening wet skin-

"It's not safe here," he said quietly, certain his voice came out deeper than normal. "Why don't I take you somewhere else?"

She grinned stupidly, "Somewhere cozy?"

For an instant he almost told her no, then he decided it was best to go along if it got her to cooperate. "Yes," he stood, offering a hand, "Shall we?"

Giggling, she stumbled onto her feet and he quickly realized he would have to carry her. He didn't think "intoxicated" counted as an emotion, but she was certainly acting that way. In a move confusing to her, he wrapped his cloak around her before lifting her and carrying her off bridal style, his gauntlet under her legs. He hoped it would appear to bystanders that he was in a black suit, and she was wearing a red trench. It was a sloppy attempt at changing their look, but it was better than nothing, and in this part of town people didn't usually pay attention to other couples.

For the first few blocks she was extremely distracting. Since she didn't have to focus on walking she kept kissing his neck and face, at one point he almost tripped as she licked his neck under the jawline. Part of him was tempted to give into what she was asking, but discipline and his sense of honor would not allow him to take advantage. As they got farther from the epicenter of lust, she slowed and eventually stopped. He said nothing, controlled his breathing, and continued on for another few blocks before he turned down another alley and finally looked down at her.

Her eyes were back to normal, but her face was as red as he had ever seen it. "Are you-" he decided quickly that 'OK' was not the right question, "in control?"

Not looking at him, she nodded.

"Can you walk?" he asked quietly.

Again she nodded, he slowly put her feet on the ground.

"We need to move a bit more before we can stop. In case we were spotted." He also needed the forward momentum to occupy his mind.

Still refusing to speak, and a blush plain on her face, she looked at him, a determined look in her eyes and nodded once more. She was grateful when he turned his back on her to lead the way. Turning off her senses didn't make the feelings shut off with them, the hormones didn't disappear from her system like magic. Her embarrassment stemmed not only from her earlier actions, but the fact that her libido was still in high gear. Following him she couldn't get the fact that she was wearing his cloak out of her mind. Surrounding her was his warmth, his smell. The way his arms had felt around her- She shook her head violently. Now was not the time! If they didn't get out of Midgar then they would both be within easy reach of Hojo once again. Stealing her resolve she quietly followed that fine butt of his. _Dammit_!

****

He was annoyed. He was supposed to be on vacation. He was supposed to be sleeping in and hungover… well he was still hungover. Reno took his ever present goggles from where there normally rested on his hair line and covered his eyes with them, blocking out the damned sunlight. He wasn't supposed to be doing _work_ today. But no, that shithead Don Corneo had to be here, and the ShinRa troops had expected them to help. They wouldn't need it if they weren't a bunch of goddamn amateurs.

If it were that alone, they wouldn't be working, but noooo. Elena had gotten on her high horse about some work ethic bullshit and gotten herself captured by the fat fuck. So far the rookie wasn't doing much to redeem the reputation of blondes.

Speaking of amateurs. Avalanche was here too, it seemed Corneo got one of their women too. From what he had seen it was pretty obvious what kind of girl Corneo liked, "girl" being the operative word. Thank god Rude was here with him, at least there was someone competent around. Avalanche certainly wasn't full of the brightest minds as far as he was concerned, fortunately they were smart enough to figure out the massive clue he had given them. Now they were all heading up the same way. If he knew Corneo's M.O. there would be a big old monster that Avalanche could fight, so they could feel like accomplished little heroes.

Reno laughed a little to himself, he didn't care about that. He just didn't feel like dealing with this shit today, so the less work he did, the better. Even if it meant not fighting. As much as he would love to scrap with Cloud again, the would-be SOLDIER would take it seriously and that made it less fun on his day off.

******

Some time and a few breaks had passed before they found a small park with public bathrooms they could clean off in. Vincent told her to take her time, as long as they were quiet there should be no one to notice them. Ralena sighed, wringing out her shirt and wiping off her face. There certainly wouldn't be time to let her clothes dry. She tied her shirt around her waist and put her vest back on as a top. It wasn't a look she cared for, but it would do for now. When she came out he was waiting in the alcove by the door, his cloak folded over his arms and his jacket open to reveal another shirt beneath it. How could he stand wearing so many layers of clothes all of the time? A wicked thought shot through he mind about unwrapping him like a nested giftbox, but she quickly banished it.

As she made sure to quietly shut the door he noticed the tattoo on her upper arm, a numeral "III" with some smaller letters beneath it. He resisted the urge to scowl at the mark that declared her one of Hojo's victims. "We should be ok to slow down for a while," he said, "I wouldn't risk renting a room, but perhaps we can find somewhere we can rest more comfortably."

"If we are slowing down, I think I can go for another few hours." She looked at the clock in the park, "Is it really 4 AM already? At least most people are asleep now, I can actually think clearly."

He nodded, they had entered one of the most suspicious times of day, if it was a weekday they had been in that window for a few hours already. The time when the early birds weren't out yet and all of the partyers had gone to crash in whatever soft spot was available to them. He decided they probably needed to find a safe place by six or seven, he wanted her resting and in a position to manage her abilities before most of the city was awake and bustling. The fatigue was even setting in on his body, and he was sure that her endurance wasn't _as_ unnaturally improved as his was. She did a good job hiding it, probably due to the extra motivation they had for not getting re-captured.

"Any ideas on how to really get out of here?" she asked, "On foot, Kalm is probably at least a day away over barren ground. I don't imagine we should stay there for very long either."

He nodded in agreement, "We should get some provisions, or at least a meal before heading out."

"I doubt we have enough to buy a chocobo, the farm is quite a ways from Kalm. But isolated enough, and I know a place in the country we could probably rest at…"

"A good thought, but let's get out of Midgar first."

"You're right." She took a moment to think about what she remembered about the city. "There aren't many roads through the wall. If ShrinRa is determined enough to get us then we can bet that most of them will be watched, if not blocked. The pedestrian walk ways that are there are hardly used so we would stick out anyways. Either way, going that route means getting to the upper plates."

"Do you know anything about maintenance tunnels?"

She shook her head, "I wasn't that much a delinquent when I left the first time. I just hitched a ride on an empty farmers truck heading out past Kalm." He considered that option briefly, but two armed adults were not as likely to get a positive reaction compared to a scared, lone teenage girl.

After some more discussion, they agreed to head down the streets towards the outer walls before attempting to make it into the maintenance tunnels once more. If they were lucky they would be able to actually stick to the cat walks and maybe find an exterior access door.

It was sometime nearing six when she stopped suddenly at the end of an alley instead of following him. "What is it?"

Staring down the block, past a small playground she pointed. "Peace," she muttered.

"What?"

"That way, there is somewhere peaceful... and safe."

He was reluctant to follow such advice, since they had been on the run her senses and the city had been doing strange things to her mental state. On the other hand his instincts did not weigh against the suggestion either. He nodded, "We can look." From what he could tell, her range wasn't too big, so the detour shouldn't take that long. Staying in the front, he kept an eye out for ShrinRa police while she navigated the short distance.

When they saw it, there was no denying that it was the place. Even though from a logical standpoint it was a bad place to hide. The stream of morning sunlight coming right down on it damn near made it a beacon. However, his surveillance on the way over showed almost no one even walked into this little corner of the sector, and there were few unoccupied shops around it, making it a little more isolated and better for Ralena to recover in. Before he had much time to think about it, his companion was already walking towards the front doors. He grasped her arm and stopped her forward movement, she looked back at him, her eyes fading back to their normal hazel, "It's ok, no one is in there. It should be safe."

He resisted the urge to scold her, she didn't have his training and they were coming up on 24 hours since they woke. 'Should be safe' was not the same as actually being safe, and given ShinRa's habit of using mechanical security she wouldn't detect every threat. "We need to be sure."

A few minutes later, after he did a quick sweep, they walked in. He closed the door behind them, she leaned back against the other one, closed her eyes and took a deep breath, as though she had been thirsting for fresh air. He immediately saw her shoulders relax and as she exhaled. Opening her eyes again he saw the Mako green glow fade from her eyes.

It was an oasis, a calm in the storm, only the lightest breezes of peace from hours spent tending the... "Flowers," she sighed happily as she turned her face to the back of the room. She briskly walked over to the patch on the far side of the old church. A tired, yet relieved smile graced her features. Vincent realized that in the two weeks he had spent nearly every waking moment with the woman, and he wasn't sure if he had yet to really see _her_.

In Nibelheim she was under the effects of the town's awful past. She likely was just getting back to herself when they met the others. She may have been her true self then, but he had been too busy analyzing their new companions to notice. Of course it was a relatively short time with AVALANCHE before they got captured. And then they were in the cells. In the cells where she had been for much longer than he would have guessed. She had been exposed to so many awful memories since he met her, all of them raw in her mind. This was a bit of calm he hadn't realized that she desperately needed.

"Vincent... can we stay here a while?"

"hnnn..." he took a minute to walk around the perimeter, it seemed to be a one room building, with one entrance, unless someone wanted to break a window or come in through the hole in the roof. "I believe we can, get what rest you can. You look like you need it."

"Thanks," the attempt at sarcasm was in her voice, but the genuine gratitude won out. She knelt down next to the flowers, resisting the urge to lay in them. After Vincent had made a more thorough check of the place he heard her speak up, "Oh."

"What is it?" he asked, concerned.

She looked up at him and smiled, "This is Aerith's garden." It had taken her a few minutes of seeing, patchy, overlapping memories of a young woman tending the flowers alone, before she could put all of the pieces together.

"Try to get some sleep," he almost sighed, "I'll keep watch for a while."

She nearly protested, probably to say he should rest first, but decided against it as she fully realized how tired she was. She wiped off the front pew nearest the flowers, took off her boots and laid down, trying to use her bag as a type of pillow. He noticed that she was asleep in moments. Vincent gave one more thorough sweep of the area before draping his cloak over her sleeping form and sitting down next to her. While he wouldn't sleep just yet, he could at least rest his body.

He closed his eyes and listened. Ralena's quiet breathing could be heard over the distant sounds of a waking city. He wondered vaguely if this was analogous to what she had to deal with. You could plug your ears or shut your eyes, but loud enough noises could still be heard and bright enough light seen, even felt. To her, each person was a beacon, and powerful enough events left echoes that never faded.

He thought back to carrying her through the street last night, dodging around people, the occasional jostling, the press as he passed a line of people waiting to get into a club. Never mind the press of her body against his... He took a deep breath and spared a look at her, she experienced that with emotions. He couldn't imagine how she kept her sanity living like that.

Sometime later, red eyes opened as he heard footsteps approaching. If ShinRa had found them, they hadn't sent a horde of troops. He narrowed his eyes, despite not facing the door, and moved his hand towards his pistol. A single set. Not the heavy tread of boots either, dress shoes. Measured, even strides, sure of their destination. If it was ShinRa, it all pointed to only one thing.

A Turk.

Tseng opened the door, seeing the front pew occupied by a single man with long black hair, who didn’t seem to react to his entrance. Not long ago he had installed a small motion sensor on the top of the doors here. The target of his surveillance may be gone, but that didn't mean this place didn't need any watching. When it had gone off over an hour ago, and didn't go off again to indicate the intruder leaving, he decided to come take a detour on his way in to work. Heidegger had taken control on the search for the fugitives and Scarlet had gotten herself involved as well, angry that they had gotten away under her nose and desperate to prove herself to Rufus. The circus that had ensued was laughable, but at least he got to go home at a reasonable hour.

Ever calm, Tseng simply walked forward until he was two rows back from the man. "What are you doing here?" He asked the man. His voice was quiet, as though in reverence of the place itself.

Vincent turned just enough to see the suited man out of the side of his eye. "We came to see the moon, she fell asleep." Even though he knew the Turk couldn't see Ralena yet, there was no point in hiding her presence, if she woke up, or just made a noise in her sleep, she would be discovered. Claiming to be alone was a lie not worth bothering with.

The Turk took a few more steps forward, enough to see the sleeping woman, a red cloak draped over her. "I see." Tseng didn't fail to notice a lack of closeness between the two, nor the signs of fatigue in the man. The two men held each other's gaze for a while, long enough that, had anyone been able to witness it, they would have become uncomfortable. After a while Tseng turned towards the flowers, "Lovely aren't they?"

"Yes," Vincent forced a small smile, "I couldn’t get her to leave." He wasn't falling for it, Vincent didn't need empathic abilities to know that. If it wasn't for his gauntlet and their weapons, then they might have been able to sell it as a date gone on too long... Well _she_ could have. He was too on edge at the moment.

Like the black clad man, Tseng was continuing to assess his potential opponent. The man was ready to fight, and was probably capable, but it was clear he had no intention of reacting first. Not unless he had to defend his companion. "Did you hear about the fugitives that escaped from ShinRa yesterday?"

Vincent gave little reaction, "Is that what all of the police running around was about?"

Tseng nodded. The man had a well-controlled reaction, though he had a feeling that, had the woman been awake, she would have given them away. He took a slow deep breath and the other man, all so slightly, stiffened. If Heidegger and Scarlet wanted this capture on their own, who was he to stand in the way? "I help watch this place for the owner," he said turning to face the man. "She doesn't mind visitors, just don't take any flowers."

The red eyed man relaxed slightly, the standoff was over. The woman made a small noise and rolled over, her hand dropping off the side of the pew. For the first time since Tseng arrived, the man spared a glimpse to his sleeping companion. Taking his hand away from his weapon he moved some of the woman's scarlet locks out of her face. Tseng felt a rush in that moment of weakness, when his instincts told him he should strike, but it quickly passed. He turned back to leave, and as though talking to himself said, "I suppose I should get an update after lunch." He had no intention of pointing Heidegger to the church, the flowers would not survive and Aerith would never forgive him. "Oh and the sunsets are spectacular here as well, the whole place turns pink and orange."

Vincent knew it for what it was, not a warning, but a courtesy. The Turk would mention this spot 'after lunch,' letting him know how long until this place was on the radar. It was also then that he realized this was the male voice he had heard outside of the supply closet. Tseng he believed the man was called.

The Turk opened the door and stopped, casting one last glance over his shoulder. "I'm sure we'll meet again." The door shut, leaving Vincent to once again listen to the receding footsteps and the sounds of the city beyond.

****

Reno looked down at the fat man beneath him, clinging desperately to the massive statue's fingertip. He casually moved his foot over the chubby digits.

"No! Wait!" The look of fear barely registered to the Turk. This fat bastard had betrayed company secrets. He had no loyalty. He was a pig with no honor. He kidnapped women for an unwilling harem. Even on the run he had enough money to find a willing woman without resorting to such measures.

He was scum.

He ground his foot against the man's fingers, "Sttooo…" The Don's fingers lost their grip and his scream faded a little before coming to an abrupt stop. There was likely a few more stops on the way, but nothing Reno or Corneo would have to worry about.

He sneered, the tattooed stripes on his cheekbones accenting the expression. "The correct answer was-"

"Because it's our job." his partner finished.

"Oh, thank you so much!" Came a female voice behind him, more piercing than normal, "I never expected you'd come to help-"

"Elena, don't act so weak," he snapped, "You're a Turk! It's time you started acting like one."

The blonde woman may have blushed, but with the blood rushing to her face from hanging there it was hard to tell. She and the Wutai girl, Yuffie Kisaragi had been strapped to the face of one the massive Da-Chao statues, each one to a cheek. When Avalanche had shown up and threatened Corneo he'd hit some switch and they'd been flipped upside down. "Y.. Yes, sir!"

Avalanche wasn't sure how to handle this, not that they thought he wasn't capable of it, but Reno had just murdered someone as casually as squashing a bug. Cid was the first to speak up, "Thanks fer that, I guess."

There were several tense moments where the two groups looked at each other, the Turks had no intention of starting a fight, but Reno felt that Avalanche might still have hard feelings about their past actions, and he didn't blame them one bit for it. He did too.

A jaunty ringtone went off and broke the tension, the redhead casually reached into his pocket as though he were not hundreds of feet off the ground in front of his enemies.

“Reno here…" After a few seconds, his face scrunched in confusion, "What?... Are you sure 'bout that?” He rolled his eyes, “We’ll need time to get back from Wutai...”

At that comment Rude looked over, a question evident, even with his sunglasses on.

"Was that the company?" Elena asked. Desperate for another assignment so she could make up for her current embarrassment.

Putting the phone away, Reno gave Cloud a cocky grin, as if to say he was lucky. “Looks like top priority shifted, Cloud. Someone else they want more at the moment.”

There was a small ripple of surprise among the resistance group. Aerith, who knew the Turks best, completely relaxed at the statement. By now she knew how Reno was about work and assignments, if he had been told to go after them, he would have just said.

“We heading out?” Rude asked,

“It’s still our day off," he shrugged, "We’ll fly out tomorrow morning.”

Tifa stepped up next to Cloud, “Could it be…”

Reno turned suspicious eyes in her direction, “What?”

“Nothing,” she said quickly, they might not be enemies today, but it seemed like neither side wanted to give the other more information either.

“Come on Rude, I want to get blitzed one more time before we’re back on duty.” The two groups crossed each other to get to their respective hostages and untie them. Agile as she was, Tifa was in the most awkward position on the statue's nose, but managed to overhear the Turks talking. Clearly hoping that the background noise of the mountain breeze would swallow up their conversation. That or they didn't care _too_ much about being overheard.

“Two jokers escaped ShinRa Tower and the cackling duo are throwing a hissy fit about it, barely kept them locked up for 24 hours." Reno muttered irritably, "I’m pretty sure Tseng just wants us to look like we’re doing something to keep them off his back.”

“Then shouldn’t we leave now?” Elena replied.

“What have I been telling you?" Reno sighed with exasperation, "Professionals don’t work themselves to death. If this shit had happened yesterday I would've left you.”

"What!?" the exclamation sounded a little miffed.

"He's got a tradition," his partner filled in.

"Really? That's a tradition?" The blonde sounded surprised and Tifa was annoyed that this had to be the one time the rookie didn't blurt out all of the details.

"Every year. No exceptions." She caught a strange tone from the scarlet haired Turk that struck her as sad.

After both of the girls were down, the Turks vacated, they seemed to take their time, but they didn’t linger, like it was just another leisurely stroll. Yuffie was quick to thank the group. Once she was done and Tifa felt the Turks were well out of sight she spoke up. "I overheard them talking about the phone call. I think there's a decent chance that Ralena and Vincent escaped."

"Really?" Aerith said hopefully, "Did they say their names?"

Tifa shook her head, "No but the timeline sounds right."

"Best we can do now is hope," Cloud said, "If they just escaped the tower they still have to get out of Midgar. I’ll keep an eye on my phone. But until we know for sure, we’ll act as though they are still captured."

"Not that we’re doin’ much about it." Barret said, crossing his arms.

"Not much we _can_ do from here." Cloud pointed out, "Except…" All eyes turned to the Wutai girl who was headed towards the trail, as though trying to sneak off again.

"Yeah, yeah, of course!" She said sheepishly, laughing with a hand behind her head. "Let's go get my- _your_ materia!"

****

It was two hours later when Ralena woke up, stiff from the bench and sore from the previous day's escapades. She stretched her arms over her head, waiting for the inevitable popping sound.

"Do you think you are well enough to get food?" he asked, "I saw a corner store on our way in this morning."

She didn’t bother to ask why he wouldn't go. A low profile was not something he could easily manage with his appearance. "Sure, any preference?" She responded, casually turning her back to him in order to remove her vest and put her shirt back on under it.

"Best you can manage for carbs and protein," he said, averting his gaze, "and something that travels well." He imagined growing up as a test subject left modesty low on her list of priorities, it normally shouldn't have bothered him either.

"Ugh," She groaned, "Protein bars and trail mix it is then. Maybe they'll have some muffins though… How long do we have?"

"I haven't heard any commotion since you went to sleep. We can spare another two hours."

"I'll be back in a few, then you need to get some rest too."

After she returned, they ate, and then he closed his eyes in what she assumed was actual sleep. She watched him for a few minutes and wondered if he always slept like the dead or if it was just the exhaustion. She sat down on the ground in front of him, facing the flowers. It took her a little while to realize that she recognized them.

****

"How are you today?" He asked, closing the door behind him. His voice was softer than usual. He had woken her, he usually did, 4am tended to be the time he visited, it was when he was least likely to run into anyone else.

She yawned, not having gotten out of bed yet, "Tired," she said honestly, running a hand through her short red hair. "They put me under for treatment. Lingering fatigue is a side effect." The Mako pods also left her sore for at least a day, they usually left her alone then, except to bring her food and check her vitals.

Sephiroth knew that… he had seen her today. He had been in the lab and saw the pod. He saw her inside with a number of attached tubes and sensors. He still wasn't sure if it had been a mistake to look inside and discover her in there.

"What's wrong?" she asked, noting his expression.

"Heh, you're not supposed to-" he stopped at the sight of her normal hazel eyes. She wasn't sensing him, he just wasn't hiding it well. "Sorry, today I…" he shook his head, "It's nothing you should worry about," he lied.

"…. Ok," she replied, uncertain.

"I do have something for you." The statement didn't seem to distract her as much as he had hoped. She was honestly concerned for him, which was ironic since all of his worry was because of the concern he felt for her. Fortunately, he knew the item would get her attention. "I'm certain someone would be angry at me for taking one. But there is only one place I know to get them in the city."

"Get what?"

Gently, he pulled a flower from inside his coat, it was a little wilted from transportation, but otherwise intact. After seeing her suspended in the toxic liquid Mako, after reading her treatment schedule, he felt she needed something special, even if she didn't know why. The flower was nearly the size of her hand, with broad pale yellow petals and long thin leaves coming off of the stem. Her eyes widened with awe and reverence, she didn't dare reach out to touch it. "I had to decide between white or yellow," he said, "But since everything in your room is white…"

"It's beautiful," she breathed, "Can I touch it?"

He chuckled, the smile actually reaching his cat-like eyes, "Of course you can, it's yours."

So delicately, she took the offered plant, and marveled at every bit of it. "I had forgotten. The petals are so soft," it seemed like she could barely get the words out. She rubbed a petal between two fingers, it had a slight waxiness to it. "It feels a little like latex."

He did his best not to react to the cruel analogies she used. Her life in the lab left her with few things for comparison. "Unfortunately, you don't have a vase, so it won't last long."

She shook her head. "It's ok," her eyes watered, but no tears fell. "The gesture is appreciated."

His mouth went tight. Whenever she was in rough shape her responses always sounded more robotic and clinical. "You seem tired, should I leave you to sleep?"

"No," she said quickly. "When you're here is the only time I'm not alone. The doctors… don't count."

He could understand that, ShinRa scientists seemed to always be lacking a bedside manner, he knew that better than most, he was practically raised by them afterall. "Why don't I play something?" She looked so fatigued and pale, he almost couldn't bear to look at her without the image of her in that damned vat flashing before his eyes.

"That would be enjoyable," she closed her eyes a moment, wincing at her own awkward speech, "I mean 'nice', I would like that."

He went to her desk where the roll up keyboard the lab had given her lay. She'd sold them on the idea that it would help with her hand-eye coordination and manual dexterity. He was barely into the second movement of the piece when he looked over and noticed she had fallen back asleep, the flower laying against her cheek.

***

When Vincent awoke he was sure he had not dreamed, that was a first. He wasn't sure if it was because of this place, or that the beasts inside him knew he needed proper rest in order to ensure their collective survival.

While preparing their gear to leave, aside from Vincent not wearing his conspicuous red cloak or sabatons, they did nothing else to change their appearance. Chances were high that if they needed their weapons today they would need to get to them quickly. "I think the roads to the west are less likely to be watched," Vincent said, remembering what the Turk had said about sunsets. "Since they are in the opposite direction of Kalm"

"But it will be farther to go around, won't we be spotted?"

"I think we can steal some ShrinRa uniforms, or at least the jackets and helmets, along with some motorcycles, then just say we are on patrol."

"But I can't ride…"

He stared at her a moment, realizing it was foolish for him to assume that she could. "If we find another vehicle we can use that, but otherwise you can ride with me. It may ruin the ruse, but we should have enough speed to make it worth it."

He noticed the awkwardness in her body language, but waited for her to speak, "Vincent?"

He looked at her, waiting for her to continue.

"When we leave here, is it ok if I focus on you?"

He raised a brow, "How so?"

She sighed, "Midgar is too crowded, too much, I can't keep my mind closed. But If I focus my abilities on you I think I can manage. Like when you are listening to one person talking in a crowd. But that means I will be feeling everything you feel. I... I just wanted your permission first." A blush crept across her face as she thought about the very fevered feelings she had the night before. She did not want a repeat of that, at least not while attempting an escape.

He thought about it a moment, it would stabilize her mental a state. He was sure he could remain focused on the task at hand since their lives depended on it. Having been trained as a Turk he was also calm under pressure. Which should cascade down to her as well. The only downside would be that if things looked hairy and he didn't want to alarm her he doubted lying would work, but she handled stressful situations well enough. "That should be fine," he said finally.

She turned her head away in embarrassment, not at what she was about to say, but at what it implied. "If it gets really bad, I may have to grab your hand for better focus." He simply nodded his agreement.

Getting through the sector at lunch hour was rough, a lot of people crowded the streets during their midday break. Vincent actually reached back to grab her hand before she asked and he was greeted with grateful green eyes. He felt a warmth from that smile and assumed it was her projecting her appreciation. There were checkpoints between sectors, but they managed to see some maintenance workers coming out of an access hatch for their break and used that to transverse between the two.

The Turk had been right, hardly any soldiers were patrolling the Western sectors. Clearly, Tseng was not in charge of the pursuit, otherwise they would have been caught already. From the layout Vincent would have preferred to leave through Sector 7, but with that Sector being so recently collapsed there was no way he was going the bring the exhausted empath near there.

When they came upon the ShinRa police station Ralena was about to try and make them bored and complacent in order for them to drop their guard, only to find that she didn't have to. She opened with a lightning spell to short-out the radio on the wall at the same moment that Vincent fired an opening shot. They had to push themselves, but the element of surprise allowed them to take out their opponents before any further alarm could be raised.

With her smaller frame, Ralena just threw the uniform on over her own clothes before tying her hair up again and securing the helmet. Vincent's cloak and jacket were shoved into the Motorcycle's saddle bags with Ralena's messenger bag. He put the uniform jacket and helmet on after giving them a once over. He also pony tailed his hair and tucked it under the jacket. It was a little awkward, but he didn't want it flying in her face if a fight came up. He took the clips from the guard's as well, the standard size ammunition that ShinRa used hadn't changed in caliber since his day, and was compatible in his pistol, so the gunman took the opportunity to restock.

"Do I need to know anything? I've never ridden before."

"We will lean to turn, just move as I do and try not to shift your weight too much," he instructed, "especially at speed." He also gave a suggestion of how to obscure herself from the view of the tower

She was not prepared for the speed.

Sure chocobos were fast, but to go this fast while not in some kind of casing was a little scary. The engine was loud, her whole body vibrated, and smooth movement over pavement was unfamiliar to her. For the first five minutes she had held on for dear life, almost willing herself to meld into Vincent and move _exactly_ as he did for fear of making them crash. He tapped her leg at one point which made her realize she had been holding on so tight her muscles were starting to strain and she loosened her overall grip. She peeked over his shoulder and was embarrassed to find out they were barely going above the average chocobo running speed. Not long after that another tap as he pointed the first station they would be passing. They were outside the city, but if they were noticed, which was likely as the only vehicle on the outer roads, then they may have to deal with combat soon. She did her best to move her head to the far side, hoping to obscure her helmet from the tower's view and hide the fact that there were two riders.

There was a static crackle as she realized their helmets had radios in them. "Sierra-0-3 what is your assignment? Over."

Ralena panicked for a moment, relieved to find that both she and Vincent were on the same channel as he brought a hand up to a button on his helmet and responded. She doubted there were many female troops, if she replied it would have been notable. "That suit, Tseng, ordered me to patrol out here for the fugitives. Over." The empath was surprised to hear annoyance in Vincent's voice.

"Since when? I thought Heidegger was giving the orders directly, and we're searching the Slums. Over."

"Look, I don't know, I'm just doing what I was told alright? Over." Ralena resisted the urge to look around. Was…. Was there someone else over the radio? There was no way that this was Vincent talking. "Stupid suits always throwing their weight around…." he muttered.

"Ok, ok." the man in the tower said, "Heidegger has most of the focus on the eastern blockades and a search, I'll call back to HQ and see if we can't get you back in the nest. Keep it up until then. Over."

"Roger that. Over and out."

Just when they were out of view of the tower he tapped her hands and then revved the motor a few times. They were about to go faster, she knew that would be coming, the chances they would get by the next guard station without incident were slim. She tightened her grip slightly as he slowly speed up to a speed she was _much_ less comfortable with.

They shot passed the next tower at what she imagined to be 200 miles per hour when they passed the third tower at a similar pace she nearly lost it when she realized they were airborne. Looking down she saw several other ShinRa bikes and soldiers under them. Remembering her fencing lessons, where too tight a grip made it _easier_ to be disarmed, she adjusted in the moment. They landed roughly, when he fish-tailed the bike she swore she was about to become road paste before they shot off again and the pursuit began.

As other bikes got closer, she wondered how many maniacs ShrinRa had recruited to drive this fast. Determined not to get caught she took a deep breath and let go with one hand, holding it out to her side, she quickly retracted her hand as she felt him adjust the bike. Apparently at high speeds it didn't take much to move around the road. Holding her hand closer to her body she focused and chanted, energy trailed behind the bike. When she was ready she slowly raised her hand straight out behind her and shot a blast of ice behind them. She winced as she watched one of the bikes go skidding as its rider rolled across the ground as others went around him.

She realized a moment later why Vincent had given her the ice materia before they rode off and chanted again, this time aiming lower, seeking to put patches of ice on the road behind them. Problem was she couldn't help but broadcast what side of the bike she was dropping them as she had to let go with one hand, so the riders up front easily managed to avoid them. At least it kept too many of them from catching up at once.

"INCOMING!" she shouted as a SOLDIER came up on their right. She quickly drew her dagger in an attempt to block, but nearly lost her grip as Vincent slowed down instead, the sword hit the road in front of them and bounced up. They both ducked as he drove under the rebounding sword. She took the opportunity to blast the bike with lighting as its rider attempted to recover.

Another quickly came up on their left, trying to take advantage of the distraction. But Vincent was ready, he grabbed his gun with his right and shot under his left arm, hitting the man in the leg. Re-holstering it, the bike sped up again as Ralena attempted to clear the left side with more ice.

Awkwardly, Ralena drew her side sword, holding it backwards so that she could still put her arm around Vincent's waist without stabbing him. She really should practice her mounted swordsmanship more…

When the next rider came up on their left she flipped her blade around and went for the man's torso. She failed to connect, but the man backed off for the moment. She wasn't sure why, but she knew her blade master would be scolding her for something right now if he could see her. Meanwhile Vincent drew his gun again, and reaching out counter to her shift in weight, and shot a rider on the right. After a few short exchanges, during some of which she was sure she almost fell off, she managed to slash the other sword wielder's arm and cause him to drop his blade. Unfortunately, that didn't deter him from being a nuisance. He peeled off a bit, but as more riders came around he would close in on them to force Vincent in close proximity to the others.

She shot another blast of magic to the right when the world suddenly spun. A sword strike had come in from the left and Vincent had caught it with his gauntlet, it made both bikes go spinning around each other for a few revolutions.

Slowed for an instant, her mind was only on stopping pursuer's, his job was getting them away. Heart racing, she stabbed the rear tire of the bike they were locked with and laid ice down all the way across the road as Vincent managed to shove the other rider off the bike and get them moving again. There were a few riders ahead of them now who hadn’t slowed. Taking advantage of being able to aim forward, Ralena managed to take two out with a carefully aimed lightning bolt. Another Vincent managed to shoot outright as he began to pull up alongside, clearing the road in front of them briefly.

"Put the sword away," his voice came over the radio. "And hold on."

After re-sheathing her sword she saw the blockade being put down and thought it best to close her eyes and not think about it. Calm determination and focus emanated from Vincent and she clung to that desperately. If he was calm it should be alright…

The bike swerved sharply several times as he dodged the impacts of the mortars from a small tank that was in the middle of the road. He sped up, and several footmen ran behind the tank and a few opened fire. Again he swerved across the road. At the last moment he geared up and sped towards the flatbed truck that deployed the tank and still had its ramp down. 

Again they were airborne, but this time with a much longer fall. She felt him chanting and tried not to squeeze his chest too hard out of fear. The barrier spell was in place on the bike moments before they contacted the ground, shattering on impact, but still absorbing most of the force from the landing. Looking back up she could see that he had jumped the bike off the side of the highway and they had landed on the barren ground some hundred feet below. As they sped away again she was very happy that she hadn't looked. As it was, if she wasn't holding on so tight she would be shaking with excitement and fear. She was certain that standing was out of the question. When the adrenaline wore off she was going to be a wreck…

After several minutes of no pursuit his voice came over the comms again. "You did well," she heard him say, "With adaptability like that you would have made a good Turk."

She sighed in relief, and smiled at the compliment. Now if only she could figure out how to use the damn helmet radio…

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This was probably my favorite chapter to write so far, probably because it is almost entirely unaffected by the events of the game.  
And yes, by now I'm sure most of you have noticed nearly all of the chapter titles are modified track titles from the game... I know I won't be able to keep that up entirely, I am trying to at least to to FF track titles, but we shall see how that works out


	7. Farm Girl

Eventually the ShrinRa motorcycle ran out of fuel. Vincent was pleased to find a pair of binoculars and a flashlight in the saddle bags of the bike and Ralena was just happy to not be moving for five damn minutes. Even sitting on the ground she could still feel her whole body vibrating from the engine.

"You should learn to ride on your own as well. At least if we can get a car we can trade off driving."

"Well…"

He looked at her, confused at her reluctance.

"You see, I didn’t actually _mean_ to hit Palmer with the truck," she blushed. "I hit the gas on accident."

He stared at her for a moment, then chuckled a little. "Of course." She stared back at him, eyes wide. Not sure if she should be offended, or surprised that she heard him laugh. "Rest a while longer," with the binoculars he gestured to the outcropping they had hidden behind, "I'll see what's around."

Scanning the horizon, Vincent was surprised at how good he felt. He had forgotten what this was like. Before being assigned to the scientists as protection detail this had been his work. Tactical thinking, always on the move, thinking on your feet, pushing your limits. In his conscious memory it had been years since he had done honest field work. Technically this didn't count… nor had it always been honest, but it felt the same. When he came back down she had eaten a protein bar and offered one to him. "I saw a large rock formation that I think we could camp in tonight. After that I think we can make it to Kalm by midday tomorrow."

She sighed, one of them should really get a watch, normally her phone would have the time, but she was never good at keeping it charged and the battery was dead by the time they escaped the jail. "Does it have to be a cave?" she asked, sleep was something she was looking forward to, but a rocky bed made it seem much less tempting. "There's no way we can start a fire. And rocks don't keep in the heat well." Midgar had sucked the life out of the surrounding earth and there was no sign of life here among the rocks. Not tree, or cactus or tumble weed to use as fuel… At least they didn't have to worry about wild life eating them.

"We won't make it to Kalm before nightfall, we need a hiding place and there are few options."

Reluctantly she agreed. "I know, I know…" She watched him pull some parts from the motorcycle, stowing them in the saddle bags, probably with the thought to try and sell them in town. "Do you think we can sleep in Kalm?"

"I don't know," He admitted, "We'll have to see when we get there."

"There's a smaller village not far from there… well probably a few days on foot. It's mostly farmers, though, so anyone coming in will be noticed."

"How do they feel about ShinRa?"

She smiled, "Not too kindly. My blade master should still live there. Between him and the Telly farm I'm sure someone will hide us out."

His interest peaked, "You lived there."

"I did, so I don't want to bring them any trouble."

"If we go in after dark, less people will see us, and the likelihood of anyone getting in trouble will go down drastically." She helped him finish up with stripping the bike and the two headed off towards the rock formation he had chosen.

***

Vincent didn't seemed bothered sleeping in the cave, it was small but its size should help keep the heat in. He just propped himself up against a smooth section of wall and closed his eyes. She, on the other hand kept waking up and turning over, occasionally pouting in envy at his sleeping form, he managed to sleep as quickly as he had done in the church. She kept trying to manage a semblance of a pillow or something and occasionally found herself shivering. The damn ShinRa motorcycle jackets had hard panels for armor in them, making them useless for padding and too uncomfortable to even try to sleep in. She did her best to tent them over her, but they weren't insulated and the gaps between her and them made keeping the heat in difficult.

At one point, after the moon was no longer visible though the opening, she was adjusting again, and nearly screamed as something grabbed her arm. Touching the hand with her own she looked over and saw a pair of faintly glowing red eyes in the darkness. "You will do no good tomorrow if you don't actually _sleep_."

"I'm sorry," she grumbled, "I don't have supernatural sleeping powers like _some_ people." She heard him adjusting in the dark. She was also certain he was silently laughing at her.

"I did not think it would get this cold," he admitted, "Come sleep over here."

If she hadn't been so exhausted and grumpy she may have been embarrassed at the prospect. Instead she simply moved over in the dark, guided by his hand to settle down in front of him, her back against his chest. He wrapped his cloak around them and the warmth dispelled much of her discomfort. It still took her some minutes to get to sleep, but this time when she did, she did not awake for hours.

****

Vincent awoke slowly from strange dreams. Strange for him at least. No blood, no pain, no crying, no Hojo, really no people from his past that he could remember. He almost moved to get up before he realized there was a comfortable, warm weight against his chest. Looking down he saw Ralena curled up in front of him. From their position he couldn't see her face and in the lowlight her scarlet hair blended in with the red of his cloak that they were both wrapped in. He had forgotten about that.

He decided to sit still for a while longer. She needed more rest than he did, and in this position any movement would surely wake her up. With little else to do, he thought on his dream. It was full of the places he had seen since waking, though in a strange and disjointed fashion. Leaving Aerith's church had lead out to Rocket Town and the door to Cid's house went into the pipes within Midgar.

Each place had been entirely void of people. Though he occasionally heard voices as though through a wall or from a distance, mostly various members of Avalanche, but he recognized Tseng’s voice as well.

The Others were there, most of them lurking in the shadows behind him like always. Aside from Hojo intentionally using whatever trigger he had to bring out the Death Gigas and the Hellmasker to see if the changes he made worked, Vincent had never changed into them yet. He had never become the last one either. He was pretty sure Hojo hadn't done that. The person who had put the last in him was Lucrecia…

The Galian Beast moved about the scenes and had behaved... well perhaps "oddly" wasn't the word. He had only ever become the creature in combat, he didn't know if it had "normal" behaviors. It prowled the halls and streets in an exploratory, rather than a predatory, manner. Sometimes on all fours, sometimes on its hind legs. He watched it, he thought that he could smell and hear what the beast did. Near the end, they were in the Nibel Mountains, when it had perked up at something Vincent couldn't hear. It ran off down the path, again without an attack posture, but not one he could define. It ran around a curve in the path, out of his view. He followed it, as though it were a loose dog, but had awoken before he could see what had caught the beast's attention.

He wondered how long this would continue for. While not exciting, it was a pleasant change in his normal mental dreamscape. He had no intention of ever forgetting his past sins, but now that he had another task ahead of him, nightly reminders seemed excessive.

****

Green eyes opened, and a sense of calm came with her waking. Aerith sat up and stretched. Her mother had come to her in her sleep. She told her that her "red haired friend," had set foot on fertile ground again and was only accompanied by one other. She ran her fingers through the grass next to her sleeping bag and sighed in relief.

"Well you've got a bit of bounce in yer step this mornin'," Barret noted as he was loading up the Tiny Bronco.

"Our friends are safe." She smiled brightly at him, leading Iris over to towards the plane. They had learned not to drop Ralena's name around the bird. It seemed to get annoyed when it turned out she wasn't there and would try to peck at the offender's hair or knock them over in retaliation.

"Oh yeah?" Cid asked, confused.

She nodded, "Well, they're at least out of Midgar. Mother told me."

Cid laughed, not just at the absurdity, but at the fact that he believed it. "Can your mom get me the lotto numbers too?"

Smiling, she shook her head, "No such luck on that, I'm afraid."

****

The next day as they approached Kalm, Vincent was on high alert for signs of ShinRa's presence. He didn't bother to tell Ralena what to look for, untrained eyes took everything for a sign of the enemy. But she did have other ways of checking, "Anything?" he asked.

Her green eyes scanned the street as they walked in, "Feels like a normal day," she replied quietly, "I don't feel any heighted sense of alarm or alertness. If anything is going on, the people don't know about it."

He nodded, "Let's use the Inn to clean up and then get supplies, after dinner, we can discuss what to do from here."

"Why Mister Valentine, are you asking me out to dinner?" she asked in mock flattery.

He gave her a sideways glance without comment and they proceeded to the inn. Unlike Midgar, Kalm did not seem all that different from what he last remembered. The houses in the mining town seemed to be of the same Tudor style construction. There were more of them, but the amount of growth was nothing extraordinary. He vaguely wondered if his old partner's house still stood, but knew he didn't have time to bother with such a thing. Besides, he felt the chances that he still lived there were low and he didn't know how long it had between Veld and Ralena waking him.

When they arrived at the lodgings the innkeeper asked about their state, she simply explained they got attacked by monsters on the way in and their vehicle had been totaled in the fight. They got one double room to save on their limited funds. Days of camping together and sharing a cell made sleeping in each other's presence a non-issue, especially when there were beds to be had.

She took a relatively short shower for all of the cleaning she felt she had to do. Vincent promised her the chance to indulge herself later, but he wanted to get supplies first in case the need to run arose before nightfall, and she couldn't fault him for his logic. After his turn bathing, he came out of the bathroom in his pants and undershirt, which, of course, was black. She noticed he was pulling at his hair with his hands to get some tangles out. "Do… do you want some help with your hair?" she asked tentatively.

"Please," he said, "It wasn't this long before… everything." It was one the only physical marker he had that any time had passed while he had been sleeping in the basement.

She realized she had never seen him really care for his hair while they had traveled together. He was always awake before her, so she just assumed that he took care of it then. She giggled at the thought of him trying to brush his hair with his claw every morning. Grabbing her brush, she patted the bed. Without a word he moved to sit in front of her.

Despite the length of it, his hair was quite easy to comb through and she envied the smoothness of it. Focusing on the simple, mundane task somehow banished all other thoughts and worries.

He watched her in the mirror, she was apparently quite content to do the job. A sort of peace came over her face, almost as relaxed as she had been in the church, but with a less potent haze of exhaustion. Her eyes had turned to that almost neutral green, and he could just barely sense her emotional state when he tried to find it. "All done," she said after a few minutes.

"Thank you."

She smirked at him, "I swear, I think even your _hair_ is better than a normal person's. After what we went through I expected that to take much longer."

He scoffed quietly and went for his jacket, "Ready to go shopping?"

In addition to selling the motor parts and buying more food, they got some basic camping gear and a sleeping bag, hers had been at the Rocket Town inn when they were captured. She asked if Vincent was sure he didn't need one of his own. He assured her he could sleep anywhere, and with the current weather the cold shouldn't be a problem. Ralena also got a new shirt, their escape from Midgar had not been kind to the white garment, and she was grateful when he suggested the replacement. When they got back with their purchases, she washed her vest and old shirt in the sink and hung them in the bathroom next to his cloak to dry.

After a simple dinner at the pub, Ralena gave Cloud a call. There were several greetings and questions on if everyone was alright, then they started to talk about how to meet up.

"The Tiny Bronco is kind of a boat now, but it's not stable enough to take out to sea, so I don't think we can get to the Eastern continent. But if you can get to Junon, I know a sailor on a ship that takes on stowaways for pretty cheap."

"Junon's, going to be at least a week to get to." The redhead sighed, "We're on foot right now. Until we know if ShinRa is still looking for us we'll probably have to stay off of the roads too."

"Keep an eye out. We ran into three Turks in Wutai and over-heard that they got recalled to Midgar to look for two escapees." She heard a bit of hesitation enter his voice, "But yeah, take your time. Now that we know you're OK we can slow down a little too. We've lost Sephiroth's trail and we're having... transportation issues of our own."

Cloud's last comment was followed by a string of curses in the background. "Who is that?" Ralena asked.

"It's Cid, the captain. He jumped on the plane while it was out of control. Now he's pretty much on board just to piss off ShinRa."

"… How low a bar is Avalanche's recruitment requirement?" She muttered, she saw Vincent trying to hide a smirk, but without his cloak on it was easy to see.

"What was that?" Cloud asked.

"Nothing. Do you know what happened to Iris, my chocobo?"

"She's fine. We stopped back in Rocket Town to pick everyone up before we knew you had gotten captured. She sorta decided to follow us when she realized you weren't around."

She sighed in relief, she felt no end of guilt for having to abandon her trusty mount. "Thank you so much, I'll have to-"

There was a loud mechanical pop and curse and she heard Cid yelling in the background. "If those ShinRa bastards hadn't already took the Highwind it wouldn't've be a fucking problem!"

"Is that Ralena?" She heard another voice ask. She had a few minutes on the phone with Aerith, who also put her on speaker phone to talk to her chocobo. When they were done she excused herself to rest while she could.

After getting off of the phone, she took a long bath and Vincent saw to the cleaning of his gun and gauntlet. It came apart in several pieces, only a cuff near his elbow could not be removed, it helped support where his arm had been… reattached. Hojo had removed it and altered it somehow, assuming it even was his original arm. The gauntlet was originally a support structure, to help aid in the bonding and whatever the hell else Hojo had in mind. Now he kept it, not only as a useful tool and reminder, but to hide his unsightly limb.

He flexed his fingers, while the right hand looked normal, his left was different. The fingers were slightly longer than they should be, and the nails were thick claws. The fingers appeared stained black and faded into his normal skin tone by the time it got a few inches past the wrist. Spiked swirls of his proper skin tone decorated the back of his hand. He heard the door to the bathroom open and grabbed a rag with his left hand to obscure her vision of it.

Drying her hair with a towel, he was sure she noticed, but neither said anything. She was wearing a simple tank top and pair of soft dark blue flannel pants with a star print she had bought for sleeping in. A luxury for their situation, but he saw no problem in it.

Seeing him taking care of his weapon, reminded her to do the same. They would be on the road again and may not get the chance to do this again properly for a while. While they quietly went about their tasks Vincent had slipped his left glove back on.

That done, they finally had something that equated to a good night's sleep.

***

Vincent opened his eyes with the first rays of sunshine coming through the window. He sat up and looked over at the other bed where Ralena slept. He realized that today would be the first day he spent with her where she'd had a full night's sleep.

Getting up, he quietly went about what would be a morning routine, if they had been in one place long enough for him to have one. While he was re-checking their gear as he had done the night before and making sure everything was packed and ready for travel he heard the tires of a car pull up outside the inn. Looking out the window he spotted a black sedan and several business attired men getting out. Two of them wore distinctive matching suits. With a slight sneer of annoyance he went over to Ralena's bed and gently shook her awake. It wasn't even nine yet.

She blinked slowly for a moment, one look at his expression had her eyes going green and her full attention. He spoke quietly, "It's time to go. There's a ShinRa car downstairs."

She sat up and took a moment to search out things downstairs while nonchalantly changing her clothes then mechanically putting on her boots. "This feels routine," she said, getting her shirt and vest on, then strapping on her sword belt. "They might not be here for us... no wait." she concentrated hard, trying to figure out how many new people were showing up. "One of them is really annoyed to be here, he's the easiest to pick out."

"It's one of the Turks,"Vincent clarified. The redhead that got out of the car had not bothered to hide the distaste. He put the saddlebags on over his shoulder and handed hers over, she threw her old shirt and pants into it. "Be that as it may, it is better for us to go in case they have questions."

"And here I was hoping to get breakfast," she pouted.

He smirked at her as he listened at the door and tensed as footsteps went by. She stopped moving as soon as he held up a hand so that he would be able to hear better. The Innkeeper was talking to someone, "You're usual room is ready for you, as always, inspector. How many additional rooms do you need for your men?"

There was a spike of annoyance in one of the people outside the door.

Once the entourage had passed by and gone up to the next floor, the pair exited the room. Vincent picked up a pair of bagels from the Inn's continental breakfast buffet on their way out. As they walked by the car Ralena drew her dagger and spitefully stabbed two of the tires, "That's for costing me a hot breakfast," she grumbled.

He suppressed a grin as they hurried away, he didn't want to chide her for it. Such a move might put their pursuers on alert, but it did also slow them down.

About ten minutes later, two suited men exited the Inn, one with a bald head and sunglasses while the other sported goggles resting on the hairline of his spikey red hair with a long thin ponytail. "I can't believe they made us fly back for this shit, what's so important about these jokers that _we_ need to do this?" the one who spoke had a much more casual manner and didn't bother with a tie or tucking in his shirt. "And what's the damn rush anyway? They didn't even give us files to look at. It's sloppy as shit."

"I heard they cost Rufus a plane," his partner stated, scanning the street in front of the Inn. Apparently there were no files ready because they had been waiting for the prisoners to be processed, which never happened due to Scarlet's failed attempt at interrogation tactics. It wasn't technically her job anyway, not that Heidegger would have done much better.

"What? All of the helicopters and the airship aren't enough?" Reno scoffed, "Shit, I think becoming president of the world got to his head."

"They also hit Palmer with a truck and escaped under Heidegger's watch."

"HA!" Reno laughed at the executives' misfortune. "Can we go easy on them? I think I kinda like these guys."

Rude stepped over to the car and looked down, "hmmm, someone doesn't like the inspector much."

"Well he is kind of an ass, making us carry his damn luggage. Why do you... Oh." Reno kicked the flat tires… "I guess we'll be calling in a helo then."

The bald man gave his partner a stern look. "We don't know it’s them."

"Ok, ok, let's waste time making sure it’s who we were looking for. Not like they had anywhere else to go but here, y'know?" The Turks walked back into the Inn to ask the man inside if he had a man and woman stop in. The latter with red hair and the former with a brass claw.

***

After they were a little ways from Kalm, Vincent noticed the more confident posture of his companion. Back in an environment more familiar to her, Ralena was happy to feel like more than walking luggage. The mountain foothills and plains between Kalm and her village was something she could handle with familiar ease.

In the late afternoon they were forced to take shelter when they heard the blades of a helicopter approaching. "Dammit," she muttered. "I was hoping to follow the river longer, but I guess that's not happening."

"Do you know another path?" he asked.

She thought a minute, "As long as we are going southeast it's fine." They sat a minute longer, waiting for the sounds of the chopper to fade. "How long before they leave?"

"It could be a while, they are flying in a search pattern." He said peeking out, "They will likely cross back over our position a few more times, and might cross our path again later if they are doing it right." They had taken refuge under a small overhang, having been lucky that they heard the incoming vehicle when they had. If it had been twenty minutes later they would have been crossing an open valley with nowhere to hide.

She adjusted, "This is an awful place to be for too long. I swear if I have to sleep on rocks again I'm going to jump into that helicopter and kick the pilot in the head." While she complained about the enemy above he noticed her scanning the area around them, much like he had done in the city. "I assume we can't risk a fire tonight?"

He shook his head.

He watched her think as she bit her lip, she wished they could have afforded one of those materia that keeps monsters away, but there was nothing to be done for it now. "We'd best find a spot among the rocks," she said begrudgingly, "I can think of four or five things that would come after us on the open plain. Only two of them would come near the mountain side and foothills."

"What keeps them away from the mountain?" He asked, knowing there had to be something.

"Let's just say Nibel isn't the only mountain with dragons. ShinRa patrols the foothills to keep them away from Kalm and the farms, so they usually stay on the interior… But we definitely have to do watches."

He studied her confident reaction, "Have you done this much?"

"My blade master is basically the village's monster hunter. Whenever they came too close or there were too many in number I went with him. We usually ranged for a few days at a time."

***

"Can we be done now?" Reno asked lazily over the headset. He was hardly even looking anymore. "Tseng told us just to _look_ busy. It's not like he even wants us to find them." He smirked as he thought about the look on the pilot's face when Reno told him they wouldn't be needing him, just the helicopter. He and Rude could have gotten an off-road vehicle to follow the fugitives in, but that wouldn't be as much fun as flying, and Reno felt like he deserved to be spoiled after they got called back from Wutai like they had.

"hmm…" Rude replied thoughtfully, looking out the side door, a pair of binoculars in one hand. "Did we have an official order?" he asked, as if to verify.

"Nope!" Reno said cheerfully, "And no paperwork means no overtime."

"No pay, no work," Rude smirked, pulling himself back into the helicopter.

"Thasss right," the redhead grinned, "And if I'm readin' my watch right, if we turn back now we should land just in time to punch out, right?" There was no verbal reply, but Reno knew his partner agreed. Turning the chopper around he mused aloud, "I wonder what seasonal booze that Kalm brewery has right now."

****

In the early morning light Ralena was assessing their location. Having climbed atop a rock with the binoculars, she had a fairly good view of the area around them. Hopping back down, she handed them back to him. "I think if we double time it and cut across the plains we can make it to town around night fall."

"How long can you handle that pace?"

"Please," she smirked, "With the amount of endurance tests Hojo put me through, I could do a marathon with my eyes closed."

"I don't think that would prove anything..."

She gave him a look, she was sure he understood sarcasm, and she was pretty sure he meant his literal interpretations to be funny. "Obvious problem with that plan," she said, not acknowledging his comment, "If they send a chopper out again..."

"We'll be easy to find."

"Yeah, and the grass is long enough right now we'll definitely leave a trail. If we're lucky we might come across the path of a flock of Chocobos or something... then we can travel along their path. But then there is a higher chance of predators that way."

"What is the conservative route?"

"Follow one of the tributaries, there's more vegetation by the water to hide us from the air. More monsters too, but probably nothing we can't handle. Finding a hidden place to sleep will be an issue no matter which route we take. My master and I used to use the fire to help keep things at bay." They both knew they couldn't risk the light giving them away, at least not yet.

"Let's follow the stream," Vincent said, "If there is no sign of pursuit by midday we can begin to cut across." The stream was a longer path, they still would have to camp before making it to the farm. But the farther they got from Midgar and Kalm, the better.

She had been right about the monsters, many of the smaller ones bolted at their presence. They did have to avoid a few ShinRa sweepers on patrol, attacking them would have only given away their position, but otherwise made it to noon with no worries. They found a small lake to stop at and took the opportunity to cool down and rest. Crouched by the water to fill her water bottle she looked back at him, "If we stick to this and keep heading downhill we sho-" A pair of tendrils suddenly burst out of the water, one wrapped around her neck and the other her left arm. Already off balance from her kneeling position she was pulled into the water, just as the surprised registered oh her face.

Alarm filled Vincent and he rushed to the water's edge. He pulled his gun but was unable to fire. With all of the thrashing water he couldn't be sure he wouldn't shoot her. His eyes darted about as he waited for a chance. Some of the water turned red and a heartbeat later she came up for breath, dagger in hand, the bloody end of a tendril around her neck. Seeing she was about to be pulled back under, he fired several shots. One cut through the tendril on her arm enough for her to rip free. The water's distortion made it impossible for him to see where a killing shot should be, but the creature relented its grip on her. Not giving it the chance to escape, she stabbed at it several more times with her dagger in both hands. He caught of glimpse of something familiar and primal in her eyes as she came down one last time, forcing her blade through its skull.

Moments later Ralena, hair a wet tangle plastered to her face, was dragging it to the shore. "If we get to see my master," she panted with a bit of a mad grin as he moved to assist, "do _not_ tell him I was that careless." Now that she had it out of the water, he could plainly see that it was a large, thick-scaled reptile with a pair of long tentacles where one would imagine its tongue should be. This particular beast was nearly twelve feet in length when one included its tail. "Damn lasso-gators," she muttered.

With expert ease that he found surprising she took her dagger and sliced a few choice parts out of the creature's thick tail. Going about it with a smooth professionalism. "We can sell the claws and teeth later," she said, "The meat's a little chewy, but it'll be better than protein bars again."

She looked back at him and noticed his curious expression. "You didn't butcher anything on Nibel," he stated.

"We didn't need the money," she said, "We had plenty of food and I was being lazy, especially after…" she trailed off. For the next few minutes, neither of them said anything as she finished the job and he kept a lookout for ShinRa scouts or approaching scavengers.

****

It was the next evening and dinner was nearly ready, the older woman sighed happily at the smell. She was a little disappointed though, she still hadn't gotten used to cooking for only two people again. Left overs were all well and good, but it just wasn't the same.

She had just set the pie down to cool when she heard a knock at the door. Confused, she called to the back of the house, where her husband was cleaning up for supper, "Pa? You expecting anybody?" He replied back with a no. Their hired farmhand had already left and wouldn't be back for two days, and few people in this town would visit so close to dark.

Curiously, she approached the front of the house, wiping her hands on her apron for good measure. She opened the door to see a sheepish looking redheaded woman. "Hi, Ma." Behind her was a tall man with long dark hair and a serious demeanor. "Mind if we come in?"

There was a moment of surprise, then relief and delight, "Of course dear! Don't be ridiculous, come in!" She gave the younger woman a tight hug and ushered her in, "Did you stable Iris already?"

There was a pang of guilt, "I… I had to leave her somewhere, some friends are watching her for me."

"Oh my, that's a shame, " Ma turned to the man, "You come in too, don't just stand there in the dark."

A voice came down the hall from beyond the kitchen. Heavy work boots thumping in their direction. "Who is it darlin'?"

"It's Ralena, and she has a friend with her."

"Oh, where are my manners!?" Ralena blushed as the larger man entered. "Vincent Valentine, this is Paul and Mary Telly, everyone just calls them Ma and Pa. I lived here with them after I left Midgar."

"Nice to meet you," he replied formally, reaching out a hand to the man.

Paul, who appeared to be in his early fifties but showed no signs of frailty setting in, grabbed the offered hand. "Nice ta meet you too Vincent. Why don't you two come on into the kitchen, Ma was just finishing up dinner."

"Do you need a hand?" The red head immediately offered.

"You will do no such thing," Mary replied, "It's clear you two walked all this way, I'll not have you strain another muscle. Just go wash your hands first."

Ralena felt out of place not helping, but gratefully did as she was told. After a few minutes, during which they had also been instructed to put up their weapons and hang up Vincent's cloak, plates and drinks got put down. Thanks was given, then dinner was served. Ralena took a moment to bask in the scent and savor the taste of it.

"I know it's sudden, but I don't suppose we could stay the night here?" She asked not long into the meal.

Paul laughed, "Of course you can! You ain't even been gone two months, you didn't think we'd clean out your room already did you?"

She blinked, had it really been so little time since she had left?

"Now," Ma said, serving herself, "My question is, will you be needing one bed or two?"

Ralena choked on her food.

After a beat of looking at her across the table, Vincent turned to Mary and answered. "Separate beds, if you have them available. Otherwise a sofa is fine for me."

Paul laughed, "Well I see you brought back a well-mannered young man."

"Pa!" Ralena blushed violently, still coughing a little. Partly at the implication and partly because of the image it put in her head.

"What I meant was," Paul continued, "I don't think findin' a man is what you had set out to do. Did you find what you were lookin' for?"

"No…" she replied calming down. "I mean… I found what I was looking for, but now… it lead to more questions."

Paul sighed, "Yep that sounds about right."

"How long will you two be staying?"

"I don't want to impose for too long. Shin… I… we…"

"ShinRa may be after us." Vincent helpfully filled in after her multiple false starts. "We fled Midgar some days ago."

"That's why we tried to come in near dark. I don't want you two to get in trouble."

"Bah! Don't worry about that! Stay a few days and recharge."

"Are you sure? I mean, we also have to get back to our friends."

"Oh, I am so happy to hear you made more friends," Ma interrupted, renewing Ralena's embarrassment. "You were always so busy working and training, you never seemed too close to anyone 'round here."

Vincent looked at her, surprised. He would have thought she was a social butterfly given how she interacted with Avalanche on their first meeting. "We can try to call them after dinner," he supplied, "See what their timeline is."

"At least stay tomorrow night too," Paul offered. "You might not think it, but you two look like you've been wrangling elfadunks barehanded. I'm sure you could use the rest."

"And for goodness sake let me clean your clothes," Ma insisted. She turned to Vincent, "They might not fit the best but I am sure we have some of our son's old clothes that you can wear for a day."

Vincent looked doubtfully at the larger man, thinking about the build his son would have, but said nothing.

A call to Cloud that evening confirmed that they were still following up on a few leads. They could probably meet up in Costa Del Sol as it was the closest thing to the middle for both groups. After that she excused herself to the back patio and spent a few minutes chatting with Aerith and Tifa.

***

She laid in her bed on top of the blankets and let her senses come on, unfettering them slowly. It was like taking off gloves after several days and getting back your sense of touch. Ralena didn't imagine Vincent would have minded, but after the overload of Midgar, she had wanted to shut everything off for a little while. Just letting her it be on didn’t make her feel like she was being intrusive. To her it was like sitting in a restaurant, you could always hear other people, but you couldn’t always understand. If she didn’t focus on a person, getting their exact emotional state was usually not obvious to her, unless it was really strong.

She took a moment to single out the individuals she could sense. Something she had vowed to practice on their escape from Midgar. With only three other people in the house, and knowing the layout, she felt this was a good control... Sometimes she disliked how scientifically she approached things, but she couldn’t deny the results when she did it right.

The Tellys were hard to separate. They were sleeping and next to each other, so she wasn’t surprised that it was difficult. Void of anyone else around, Vincent was easy to pick out. For nearly two weeks they had been in each other's company every day, and for nearly every moment. She smirked, with his collar and hair always in the way, his presence was almost more familiar than his face. She could tell he was awake, but tried not to pry any deeper than that. He was probably thinking about what the next leg of their journey would entail. He seemed so goal oriented all the time.

After laying there a few minutes more, she got under the covers, closed her senses, closed her eyes and went to sleep.

***

Vincent was not lying down, and while he was physically tired, he was not sleepy. The house was quiet, country folk apparently turned in early. He sat at the small desk by the window and looked out at the night sky, the horizon hosted large black shapes, the nearby mountains, that blocked out some of the stars. 

The view made him think of nights long past. Out in the mountains when there was only the ShinRa Manor and no little town of Nibelheim. He had looked out at the night sky then, romantic ideals in his head about he and Lucrecia. He had looked out at the sky, wondering why she had run to Hojo. He had sat in the dark, wondering what he could do, why she had made the decision she did, convinced that he could have done something different.

What he wouldn't give for a stiff drink right now.

He hadn't had a peaceful moment like this to truly dwell on the past since Ralena woke him up. Being on watch while camping he had let his mind wander a bit, but he always remained some level of alert. Thinking about the past now, it still hurt, he still felt anger and longing and remorse. In their travels it didn’t seem to linger as much as it did now. It was probably just a lack of distractions that caused it… He wondered if it was, unintentionally, the empath’s doing. Could she unconsciously be soothing his morose state? Or maybe some of her more upbeat attitude was leaking onto him, naturally or not... He dispelled the thought. Knowing first-hand how unpredictable her abilities were, he would never accuse her of doing it on purpose.

Some minutes later, he found himself thinking about her lips. It was days ago, but the intensity of that encounter lingered in his mind. It hadn’t been natural, or intentional, but he hadn’t felt anything like that in a long time. It had sparked something in him. Before that moment, after all of the physical torture he had been through, he honestly didn't think he was capable of feeling lust anymore. The abruptness of the kiss had caught him completely off guard, and the look in her vibrant green eyes had been hard to ignore...

He shook his head, he had no intention of bringing it up to her. She had looked completely mortified once she got herself under control and probably regretted the entire incident.

It had been so different from his first kiss with Lucrecia. Timid and gentle in broad daylight, under their tree in the mountains with a little picnic she had set up. A peaceful moment, in a perfect setting. Compared to a late-night, high-induced passionate lip-lock in a back alley, wearing dripping wet clothing while trying to hide from the enemy. A frenzied rush of desire in the midst of a dangerous situation.

He closed his eyes and turned his thoughts away from the moment as he felt his body begin to react to the memory. It would do him no good to linger on it. He shouldn't even be thinking about it as a 'first kiss', as that implied there would be more to follow.

The two women were at the forefront of his mind, and he found himself comparing them. They were similar, but different. Lucrecia and Ralena both had a way of dragging him into things, that was certain, and they had their ways of dealing with his quiet nature. Both could be upbeat, but thinking back, Lucrecia always seemed a little forced. Like she wanted to be happy, but couldn't quite manage it. It wasn't hard to see that the redhead was more open and genuine with her emotions, though the comment that Ma made about her lack of friends made him wonder if that was true normally. She had seemed more open and honest with him, then again the way they had met was far from conventional. Ralena seemed more strong willed than the scientist too, he smirked, the Tellys likely had a lot to do with that.

Maybe they weren't so alike after all...

His mind traveled back to the cave, and the strange comfort of another person's warmth against him. Even if it had been out of necessity, it had been… pleasant. He had never slept beside Lucrecia, the few trysts they'd had always with one of them leaving in the interest of discretion. He chalked up the comfort he felt beside the redhead as a general desire for human contact and tried not to dwell on it.

Staring out the window he continued to let his mind wander for a little while, shifting between the past and present, before turning in. 

***

The next morning found Vincent in a pair of dark denim jeans and a slightly over-sized navy blue button down shirt. It was not ideal, but at least they had found an old pair of pants that was close to his size. He thought a bit about the small town they had passed on the way in. Clearly it was not big enough to warrant its own reactor, and it was too far from Kalm for ShinRa to have bothered with wires to send power. Instead, it seemed most of the properties hosted some solar panels, or a small wind turbine. Both technologies had been all but abandoned by ShinRa after they had begun producing Mako energy. Not that a Mako Reactor would suit a farming village well, given how it soaked up all of the life around it.

In the living room, he had the coffee table covered in a cloth that held the stripped down parts of his Quicksilver pistol. Paul had given him use of the cleaning kit he had. Vincent looked at his loadout with a slight frown on his face.

"Somethin' wrong with your gun?" Mary asked, sitting down with a tray of coffee.

He shook his head slightly, taking the offered beverage with an appreciative nod, "Just thinking about how much ammunition I have," he gestured to the ammo pouch at the far end of his set up. "We're going to need to at least make it to Junon. If I run out I'll have to rely on Ralena more that I would like." His hand-to-hand skills were more effective against humans, not monsters, he could supplement his ammo by using spells more often, but he felt a well-placed bullet was more effective.

The older woman nodded, "I can see that, what caliber are you using? We might have some extra for you."

"That's not necessary."

"Ralena may not be our daughter, but she may as well be. You're takin' care of her, an' giving you some rounds is the least we could do to help out."

"She doesn't need taking care of."

"For the most part, I'm sure, but you said you came outta Midgar, right?"

He nodded.

"Three years ago we drove in there for… something, I can't remember. Poor girl must've had a panic attack or something. I had to stay in the car with her for damn near the whole time." She sipped her coffee, "But if you two got through there and she was on her own two feet then I'm guessing that you _are_ helping."

He gave it some thought and told her the type of ammo he was using. Even if he thought it was just because she was better with her control, he couldn't say anything to Mary. Before they had arrived Ralena told him, with no small amount of shame, that only her blade master knew about her extraordinary abilities.

After finishing her coffee Mary went and found a spare box and handed it to him. He gratefully accepted it as she tidied up the tray. "Well look what the cat dragged in," he heard her say. Vincent turned and saw Ralena walking into the room, wearing a tank top and pajama shorts.

"Morning, Ma, Vincent." She yawned.

"Morning!? Days half gone girl, it's nearly 10:30."

Ralena blinked, given the time she had gone to sleep that made nearly 12 hours. "Sorry, I must've been more tired than I thought."

"I'll say," Mary replied, "I've never known you to ever sleep a wink past eight unless there was a festival the night before."

She came and sat down on the sofa next to Mary, "Are you sure there's nothing I can help with? Maybe lunch?"

"Not a thing," The older woman said, then reconsidered. "Tell you what, this mornin' we invited Flynn over for dinner. You can help with that."

Her expression brightened and Vincent gave her a questioning look. "My blade master," she smiled.

"Now I didn't tell him you were here, yet. But I expect you will want to look presentable." Mary stepped away for a minute and returned with more coffee and blueberry muffins for Ralena, "You're favorite," she said when she put the tray down. As she headed back into the kitchen she stopped and turned back. "You know, there is something you could do for me."

"What is it?" Ralena asked, eager to not just be a slouch on her visit home.

"Why don't you put that hunk of wood in the corner to good use. It hasn't done a thing but collect dust since you left."

She laughed, "Of Course."

"Oh… but after you put on some decent clothes. I know Vincent is your friend, but really, to be dressed like that in front of company." She lamented, gesturing to her state of dress.

She blushed at the comment, but said nothing. For a while they enjoyed the quiet. She eating her breakfast and he reassembling his gun from the first proper cleaning it had since he woke up. She watched him work with interest.

"I'll be back in a minute," she said eventually. Standing and taking the tray back to the kitchen, he watched her leave, then went back and finished with his firearm once she was out of sight.

While she was gone he stood and went to the window, listening to the noises of the household. Mary was hanging their laundry in the back, he noticed how odd his cloak and clothes looked on the line next to Paul's overalls and Mary's aprons. Beyond that was the sound of the various farm animals, pigs and chocobos mostly, and some kind of equipment running in the distance.

He turned to the mantle over the fireplace. A few obligatory family photos were there. There were pictures of a growing boy with the Tellys, the last of him as a young man in a ShinRa Military uniform, the mountains of Wutai in the background. Cloud had mentioned the Wutai war when he had asked about Yuffie, so it must be from then. Another photo was of the Tellys and Ralena as a slim teen with hair barely long enough to cover her ears. Given the absence of photos of both the man and Ralena together, Vincent assumed that he never returned.

The next photo had her, hair just past her chin, standing victoriously over a dead monster. She was smiling proudly, like a child that had caught their first fish. It was a smaller version of the lasso-gator reptile that ambushed her at the river.

He frowned, when she was wrestling the beast beneath the water he had almost tried to _purposely_ turn into the Galian Beast to jump in there with her. It was something he had never considered doing before. It frightened him that, in the moment, it hadn't seemed like it would be difficult.

Lost in his thoughts, he barely registered the redhead re-enter the room and sit down in the corner until the music started. It was something slow and simple to at first, clearly warming back up from a long time away from the instrument. When she got up to speed he could tell she was nowhere near being a concert pianist, but could probably do well enough among friends. Ma Telly came in through the back and smiled as she walked through the room, but otherwise went on about her house work.

After a short while he joined her on the bench and turned the page for her. There was a slight hiccup in the music as she looked at him in surprise. Clearly not expecting him to know how to read music or know when to turn the page. She smiled, and focused back on the instrument.

****

He sat in her room and listened as the girl played the simple sheet music before her. It was far from a proper set up, a small sized, roll up keyboard was laid across the desk and the beginners book was propped precariously in front of her. Of course there were no pedals to speak of, and the volume was turned down low to make sure no sound escaped the room. The music was slower than it should be, but she had managed to keep the beat mostly in its own time. She missed a fair number of keys, but he was not surprised.

As the music stopped he felt her disappointment wash over him. “What’s wrong?” Sephiroth asked.

“That was not a satisfactory performance,” she pouted, at much at her clinical choice of words as her ability, “I mean, really bad.”

He stood from where he had been sitting on her bed and walked over, his silver hair trailing behind him. They were in her quarters in the science wing, not that she was allowed anywhere else. Also his visits were secret… well Angeal had spotted them once, but he agreed not to speak of it. Sephiroth had used his influence to get a ghost keycard to access the level from one of the network techs. Using it should leave no record, and if it did it would show as a glitch and have no name attached to it. “Ralena, you had only 'played' on paper without hearing it before tonight. Given that, I think you did well.”

“Really?” relief went through the room.

“Now,” he asked sternly, “Have you been able to keep your feelings to yourself lately?”

She laughed and her eyes dimmed, but remained green. He felt the foreign emotions of her disappointment fade away “Yes, but it’s harder not to feel from others.”

“That’s ok,” he assured her, “If your eyes stopped changing all of the time, then Ho- the doctor would realize that something has changed. You don’t want that scrutiny.” 

She winced at the thought, but nodded, feeling his concern for her well-being. With his guidance she had begun to figure out when her feelings were being affected by the outside, but it was slow going. The lab assistants usually found tasks involving her to be routine, and rarely had strong emotions about it. No wonder she had seemed so listless most days, being around bored people doing routine BS work as far as they were concerned. When other tests were performed, her own discomfort far outweighed anything they felt. Though she wondered now if the looks in their eyes was her own fear of what was to come, reflected back. 

He glanced at his watch, just past 0500, the first scientists shouldn’t be in for at least an hour, she had already been playing for nearly that long. He turned his cat-like eyes back to her. “You said you were tired earlier, do you want to stop?”

“No, I want to be better at this,” she said, her eyes full of determination.

“OK," he pointed to a part of the music, "do a few scales and try this part again.”

****

It was nearing sunset when Pa Telly opened the door, revealing a middle aged man with short dark hair and a thin mustache. “Flynn, So glad you can make it!” He shook the man’s hand as he walked in. 

“Is that music I hear, Pa?”

Pa laughed, “You bet, our girl’s back for a bit. But it seems she and her friend stirred up some trouble, so we gotta keep it hush, hush fer now.”

“Did she now?” He asked, as though it was almost expected.

“Oh please,” they heard the woman in question say as they walked around the corner, “You talk like I hit someone with a ca-... oh wait,” blushing, she stopped playing and stood to go greet her blade master. After a warm hug and a hello, she turned to Pa. “Where’s Vincent? I ain’t seen him since I went to change before dinner.”

“He went to change too. I think our boy's clothes were an uncomfortable fit on him.” 

She nodded, though she had never really met him, the Telly’s son was definitely broader in build than her relatively slender companion. Nowhere near the size of Barret, but still.

***

Vincent walked down the hall, adjusting the parts of his gauntlet he had decided to wear for the evening. For the most part it was just the cloth glove and the bracer that covered his forearm. He was still self-conscious about his left hand, but for some reason it seemed rude to wear it while a guest in this house. Otherwise he was wearing his own pants and jacket again.

"Speak of the Devil, here he is!" He looked up and saw Paul standing at the opening at the end of the hall, waving him over. "Come on over Vincent and meet Flynn."

Nodding politely, he continued and stepped into the foyer, for a moment he paused. Ralena was laughing about something, and turned her smile on him. Her hair was styled simply, pinned back from her face and she wore a simple, but elegant, forest green sundress. The moment was disrupted as she reached forward, deceptively fast in her excitement, and grabbed his left wrist and hand to pull him all the way into the room. He almost drew back violently from the touch, but managed to stop himself. "Vincent this is my blade master, Flynn. Flynn this is my friend, Vincent Valentine. He's been keeping me company since we met in Nibelheim."

"There and back again already?" Flynn asked surprised.

She let go of his hand to look sheepishly at her master. Vincent retracted the shameful limb, placing ir close to his body and turning hos left side away from the group. He now wished he had worn his cloak just so he could hide it.

Sucking in a breath through her teeth, Ralena answered her master's question. "Yeeaah we~ll we got back pretty fast because…" she trailed off.

"Because?" Flynn asked, raising a critical brow.

"You save the serious talk for after dessert," Mary said, interrupting the moment. "That's when we'll have a bit of drink to ease the edge off."

"Mary Telly encouraging drinking? Is it that good of a story?"

"No idea," Mary said, gesturing for everyone to sit at the dinner table, "I haven't heard it yet."

They all sat down, the first few minutes were spent dishing out food while Mary made a point of saying what Ralena had helped with. The redhead blushed a bit, but tried not to make a big deal of it, insisting it was the normal help should would have given any other day.

Thinking the question perfectly innocent, Mary asked how the two had actually met. Ralena almost froze, but instead shoved food in her mouth to buy some time. Why hadn't she thought this? Of course Ma would have asked.

"She woke me up." Vincent said simply. The empath was happy she hadn't choked on her food... again.

"Pardon?"

"She didn't know I was sleeping nearby, she was looking around when monsters attacked her, the noise woke me and I came to assist."

Flynn leaned it, "What gave you trouble?"

"There were these floating pumpkin things," Ralena answered honestly, describing a fight the two had on the way out of the ShinRa mansion. "They could fly, not that fast, but there was five at the time."

As the town's resident monster hunter and former apprentice, Flynn and Ralena slipped into talking about some of the creatures she had fought on the other continent before the subject died off.

”I been meaning to ask Vincent… what is that gold glove of yours for anyway?”

“Pa!” Mary chided.

“It’s a medical support,” Ralena said a little too quickly. Vincent looked her way and could tell that she was intentionally lying. “It was an accident, wasn’t it?”

He shrugged, “Battle wound, actually.”

“My goodness what happened?” Mary asked, now that the subject had been broached she felt less shame in a follow up question.

“I don’t think he likes to go into detail about it Ma…”

“I let my personal feelings get in the way,” he said, not entirely a lie, “and I paid the price.”

“I can relate to that,” Flynn said. The former Turk had a feeling the man was suspicious about the story. But to his surprise the swordsman changed the subject as smoothly as parrying a blade and didn't pry.

****

Night came quickly on the farm, unlike Midgar or Kalm, there wasn't much spare power to go around, so outside lighting was close to non-existent. There was a brief break after dinner while Mary and Paul cleared the table that found Ralena sitting on the stairs of the back porch, staring into the deep blue of the darkening sky. "This is my favorite time of day," she said quietly as the footsteps stopped just behind her. He said nothing, but somehow she knew he meant for her to continue. "This is the time when the stars come out." The moment somehow became awkward until she spoke up again.

"Sorry I grabbed your hand, I was just so excited for you to meet Flynn, I didn't think about it bothering you."

"How did you-"

She turned to him and her eyes flashed green for a moment, "Couldn't help it."

"It's alright," he said, squeezing said hand into a fist for a moment.

“... Sorry about trying to cover up for your gauntlet too. I didn’t think you would want to talk about it, and I... didn’t want to bring up Hojo at dinner.”

“Do they know?”

“Not really. I think Flynn has an idea, but he's never asked. I’ve never really told any of them." He noticed one of her hands subconsciously grip at the side of her waist. "When I came here I didn’t want to think too much about my life from before.”

He could understand that. When you went from something so awful to a life as peaceful as this, it was any wonder she had left it at all. He sat down on her left side and again they said nothing, silently watching the lights come on in the sky. "Ralena," he said eventually, "You can stay here if you want."

She looked down from the sky, "Why would you say that?" There was hurt and disappointment evident in her tone.

He hadn’t thought she would be upset at the suggestion. "It's calm, and peaceful. You honestly seem happy here."

Oh, so that was it… At least he wasn't trying to get rid of her, "I can't stay."

"Why not?"

Hazel eyes turned to him, "Knowing what we know, could you go back to sleep in your coffin?"

He shook his head.

"Same for me."

The silence that fell over them felt bitter.

"There you two are!" the tension vanished and Ralena thanked the cosmos for country mothers. "It's time for dessert, get on in to the living room."

The relaying of their story was a little patchy as the redhead was unsure of how much she should say in order to keep their audience out of trouble. She started by just saying they ran afoul of a ShinRa executive, who arrested them, and took them back to Midgar. "So they just flew you back? What'd you do? Shoot his dog?"

She was as embarrassed as a teen caught by her dad making out on the porch, "I mighta …" she faded off into grumbles.

"You what now?" Flynn asked.

"…hit him with a… truck."

Ma was positively scandalized, "You did what!?"

"I didn’t mean to! It was an accident!" she cried out. Pa burst into laughter, somehow, he found this to be perfectly acceptable. Not one to really care too much for ShinRa, especially after hearing no one was seriously hurt, as far as they knew, things calmed down after that. A little past nine Flynn excused himself to head home, and after helping with the clean up the travelers did the same.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know not a lot of action in this chapter... or the next honestly. A lot of character interactions coming up which I hope will be entertaining/interesting enough to keep you around :)
> 
> Also at this point I have blown past the length of the original by over 10k words, and this isn't even halfway through the game plot. Based on my current outlines I anticipate this being around 42 chapters, but I have split and merged planned chapters a few times already so this number is not fixed yet


	8. Ahead on Our Way

The morning after the dinner with Flynn and the Telly's, found the two fugitives standing out the back of the house next to the gate. "We couldn't possibly…" Ralena was saying for the third time. They already had lunch and sandwiches packed for the next two days and jerky and dried fruit for another few days after that, all provided by Mary.

Paul was standing in front of her, holding the reins to two chocobos that were saddled and ready to go. Vincent had already given up on turning down their generosity after Paul had convinced him to take one of his Winchester rifles. "Now don't be ridiculous," he said, "They can find their way back home no problem. Take ‘em as far as the mine entrance at least. It would take you days to get through the marsh otherwise, and you'll need ‘em to get passed the Zolom anyway."

"Zolom? That's still around?" Vincent asked. He had heard about the monstrous snake before he had been put under. At the time, monsters weren’t as pervasive and he had assumed it was just overblown country stories.

"Last I checked, unless someone has stuck all of ‘em to a tree or something," Ralena replied.

"All?" How many were there?

"Now before you go. I think there is one more thing that needs takin’ care of.” Pa said, pointing behind them.

She turned, seeing Flynn approach, a long box held in his hands. She moved forward, “Come to see us off?”

“Of course, and I wanted to give you this.”

“What is it?” she said quizzically, though the dimensions of the box were a solid hint. He gestured and she opened the lid and gasped. Inside the box was a new side sword and parrying dagger.

“You've got a lot ahead of you, I think you should take these.”

“oh no I-”

“You can and you will.” He said with no room for argument. Picking up the sword gingerly she gave it a few experimental swings, of course it was beautifully balanced, Flynn never would have bothered with less. The design was simple but elegant and the metal had a dark, dull sheen with a brighter edge. Materia slots were in the cross guard and another in the pommel cap. “These are also made of sterner stuff than what you have now. Special method my father used in the forging.”

“This isn't….”

“No, my brother made these. I commissioned them just before you left, hoping you’d be back to get them.”

She didn’t know what else to say. “Th...thank you so much!”

After a few more goodbyes, they mounted up and started heading away. After a few minutes Vincent finally asked her why she seemed to think something was so funny. “I’m sorry,” she snickered, “But you just look so out of place on Dasher there.” He wasn't as bad on a chocobo as she was on a motorcycle. But his dark and brooding look certainly didn't benefit the large, yellow bird.

“I do not have much experience on them,” he stated.

"I mean, you'd look better on a black one," she grinned, "Maybe we can outfit it with some spikes too."

“If that’s how you want to do this...” he smirked at her. 

She barely made out his expression, “What?”

"Shouldn't you have a chocobo-boy hat and short shorts?"

"I'm not a farmer, I'm a monster hunter," she scowled, which made him chuckle a bit.

They made it to the edge of the marsh before lunch time. They agreed to rest the chocobos and she gave Vincent a few quick pointers on how to handle it at high speed. “I’m riding the alpha, so yours will mostly follow me anyway...”

They had considered stopping for lunch at the mine entrance. When they got there, however, the month old remains of a Zolom put that idea out of their minds. While much of it had been scavenged, it still stank to high heaven and was swarming with bugs and other small creatures, which the chocobos happily munched on. After a brief break, and making sure there were no giant snakes in sight, they sent the chocobos on their way back home. “We should be able to make it through the mine before nightfall. How far do you want to push? We’ve still got a bit of ground to cover.”

“Didn’t you come this way before?”

She shook her head, “Iris can go over shallow water, I went around last time.”

In the end they camped at the other side of the mine. Then entrance there had been worked into an actual room and had a wood burning stove for warmth. The next morning, when they saw some wild chocobos he suggested trying to catch one. “I know I’ve still got some grasses, but it’s not that easy, they _are _wild.”

“Have you tried using your abilities to keep them calm?”

“I-" she stopped short an realized that she had never really tried to use her abilities on animals before, "No I haven't.” She managed it, barely, and by the end of the day the birds ran off on their own. They easily made it at least 4 times as far as they would have otherwise. But the effort left Ralena drained from keeping up the calming aura the whole time. She'd tried to let it go a few times, but when she had, the wild chocobos tried to buck them off. She had never purposely emitted emotions for that long before, and didn’t realize the toll it would take. Not surprising, Vincent insisted he take first watch.

Having been well rested for two nights in a row, Vincent found his need for sleep had again decreased. It was a thing he could actually be thankful for. Not only did it allow him to remain alert, but it meant that he could take the bulk of the nighttime watch and his companion would be able to get the rest she needed.

***

Reno took off his headset after landing the helicopter on the Junon Airfield. Heidegger had already gotten off of the chopper and was on his way to his office at the base to meet Rufus, not bothering to wait for his underling. When Heidegger had come back to Midgar with the now escaped fugitives, Rufus had continued on with his corporate tour and semi-secret Sephiroth hunt, which now seemed to be running low on leads.

The best they had now was the black robed science projects from Nibelheim wandering about. All they used to do was moan a little and rock slightly. According to reports, after Sephiroth had attacked at the tower, they had started muttering about Sephiroth, that he was calling them and other such nonsense. Many of them were still useless, but several had been moving around the world and asking questions about the Promised Land.

After some consideration, Rufus now deemed Avalanche a non-issue, and had ordered Heidegger to drop the search for the fugitives as well. According to a spy Rufus had managed to get into the small group, the group's focus was the same as ShinRa's, finding Sephiroth and the Promised Land. While that meant that they were technically in competition, Rufus was content to let them run around on their own as long as his spy remained with them and they weren't attacking ShinRa facilities.

Heidegger had gone red at the call to ignore the fugitives and Avalanche, and there were a few more unfortunate, bruised workers at ShinRa Tower because of it. It was hardly his most abusive temper tantrum, the beating the guards from the cell block received had been far worse. Naturally, the man had ordered Reno to arrest the pair if he saw them while they were in Junon. The Turk had nodded at the order, but generally didn't care what the Commander said. He didn't plan on leaving the base, so it wasn't like he had to worry about it anyway. Heidegger might have been his boss on paper, but the only one the Turks really reported to was Rufus.

Besides, the checkpoints all had their photos, if they were dumb enough to get caught that was their problem.

***

Once Junon was in sight, Vincent and Ralena checked in with Cloud, from there the timing would all depend on when they could get passage on a ship to Costa Del. Ralena insisted that she would be perfectly fine as long as they stuck by the docks, as she had done before, and not go too deep into the city proper. There were less people in there and they tended to be no nonsense and didn’t ask lots of questions.

Walking into lower Junon, the pair got a few looks, and Ralena explained to him that last time she had come through the locals said they didn't get many non-ShinRa visitors. There seemed to be no evidence of an alert for them, which surprised both of them. Next to Midgar, Junon was the second home of the ShinRa and its seat of military power, if they were to be on their toes anywhere they thought Junon would be it. But there wasn't even so much as a wanted poster, there was a small article in the local paper, but it lacked their description and even noted that the ShinRa suspected them dead at the hands of monsters.

Vincent noted that, like Midgar Junon had grown exponentially while he had been sleeping. At first, it hadn't seemed like much, a bump of buildings poking over the edge of a cliff where the earth was barren around it. Then they got to an angle to see the bulk of the city. It was built up into the cliffside like a tiered cake and the village below looked like an afterthought, rather than the original town. The most obvious item that had been added was a massive cannon, sticking out of the center of the city and stretching out over the water. The scale of it was almost mind boggling and Vincent could see few practical uses for it, did Wutai send a navy during the war? It looked as though the barrel could be aimed, but he was unsure if it had an effective range of motion. He almost hoped it had been built as a publicity stunt, even if it would have been a massive waste of money.

So far, here more than anywhere else could he see the stark contrast between the old and the new. The lower city still had Tudor style buildings like Kalm, but nearly all of them were aged and run down, like the nearly abandoned past. Many of the buildings were overshadowed by massive girders and other supports built around them that went up for the airstrip to sit upon. Metal structures even went out over the water and he could see pipes from some sort of rig coming up along the beach.

What struck him most was the smell. After being in the country for days, the smell that came with all of the chemicals required to operate large machinery and a hint of not-quite-properly-managed sewage stood out to him. While he could have gotten used to it over time, he could see how a group like Avalanche would see things like this and interpret the ShinRa as a planet killing parasite.

In order to access the dock they would have to get into the upper city, and the entrance to the elevator was behind a blast door with a checkpoint. He certainly had no identification that would get him past it without scrutiny and neither did Ralena. Before, since she lacked an I.D., she had to go through a brief interview and they took her name and photo. They both agreed that it probably wouldn't go as smoothly this time, and that they would have to find another way to access the docks.

After some discussion they decided that sneaking their way up would have to do. They spent a bit of time scoping out the towers that they could possibly climb to get to the upper city. The the towers had electricity coursing through the bottom twenty feet above the high tide line. It was a waste of power, it was certainly a heavy handed… security feature, probably designed to keep monsters away. A call put out to the others revealed that they had climbed one of the towers and had gotten up beyond the electrical current by going into the water and, "You did what? ...A dolphin?" Ralena's tone was clearly skeptical. "... No, Cloud, I don't believe you... where are we supposed to- you know what, never mind. We'll figure something else out."

Fortunately, the way electricity worked hadn't changed in two decades. After it was dark Vincent said they could cause a disruption of the circuit upstream of the tower they wanted to climb. Then, while the power was out and it was dark, they could climb the tower into the upper city. When asked how they would cause a short he said they could use a _Bolt_ spell if the weather would mask it, or he could just shoot the right kind of equipment.

"Is it really that simple?" she asked.

"We'll probably knock out power for a portion of the city for a few hours at least," he explained, "With all of the new technology, I do not know the impact that will have."

She hadn't thought about that. He had seen the minimal dependence on electricity the farm had, she had a hard time imagining how much trouble such an action would really cause. "Can we minimize our impact?"

He shook his head, "That is minimizing it. The closer to the end we are the more likely it will only effect the lower city. If it's just them, the ShinRa might put off repairs for days as it looks like these people are at the bottom of the priority list. If we disrupt it to where it takes out power for more… important areas of the city, they will fix it faster. We will inconvenience more people, but for less time."

Later, he'd have to see what documents the others had, if any. Tifa should have a legitimate I.D., since she had owned a business in Midgar. Captain Highwind should have something as well, since he had actually worked for ShinRa, though how up to date it was would be questionable. He resisted the urge to sigh, the limited forgery skills he had were better for picking out fakes, rather than making them. When he was a Turk, some card stock, a decent printer, and a laminating machine would have been enough for half of the forging necessary for a passable identity. Given the technology and the keycards he had seen at ShinRa Tower he doubted he could make anything that would work in urban centers of this new world.

They found a place in the lower city to sell the monster parts they had harvested along on the way. It wasn't much, since they had prioritized speed, but it should be enough to get them passage on a ship and still have some leftover.

While Vincent was purchasing some dry bags for some of their gear, Ralena stood outside the shop and scanned the immediate vicinity for signs of alarm, suspicion or hostility. Finding none that seemed to stand out, she decided to again practice using her sense like a radar. Clusters of people made a cloud of emotions and it was hard for her to determine exactly how many people were within her range, other than Vincent there seemed to be about six people and four clusters. One of those nearby clusters was ‘loud’ and curiosity momentarily made her forget about not prying into other people's business. When she focused in on the strong emotions she blushed and retracted quickly. Apparently a couple had found a little out of the way place to spend some time.

“Everything alright?” Vincent asked. She jumped, not having noticed him come up beside her in her distraction.

"Yes!" she nodded and turned away quickly, still dispelling her blush, “Shall we find a spot to nap before nightfall?” Great, now she'd have to spend the next few minutes thinking about something mundane as hell in order to calm down. This is what she got for prying.

He watched her move away. Something had put her out of sorts, with her green eyes dimming he assumed it was something she had sensed. He decided not to ask, if it was important or relevant he trusted her to let him know.

***

A little past ten at night found Vincent perched on someone's roof, aiming carefully though the sights of the Winchester rifle. According to the range finder on the binoculars they had, his target was a bit beyond optimum range for the gun. He had scanned the area for a closer perch, but there were none that gave him the angle he needed. He'd only really have one shot at this. The transformer should pop and explode upon failure and his gunshot would probably dismissed as part of that, but more than one attempt would probably be noticed.

In the moonlight he could make out Ralena's form on the beach below, waiting for him several towers away. Together, they had scouted it for monsters before he climbed up, they didn't need any delays as that would increase the risk of them being spotted by a repair crew. At this point neither were wearing any extraneous clothing, they needed dry clothes to change into for when they climbed up to the air strip, and to top it off their boots would be difficult to swim in. She was in her tank top and underwear, and as he didn't have a change of clothes, he was similarly dressed in his undershirt and boxers. It was a ridiculous way to start a mission, he'd been in this situation one other time and that mess has also involved a harmonica, a giant crustacean and a 200gil dry cleaning bill.

He took a few deep breaths and checked the ShinRa banner nearest his target. It wasn't an ideal wind indicator, but it was all he had. Checking his aim one more time he waited for the banner to settle. He found that keeping his body still was remarkably easy. As the wind died down he took in a deep breath and held it, when the banner stopped moving he exhaled and squeezed the trigger.

Even though she knew it was coming, Ralena was startled by the shot and the subsequent lightshow that went off in the corner of her vision. Vincent had warned her about not looking at his target, since the flash would ruin her eye's adjustment to the darkness. When the light died down she turned and saw him, ghost-like with his ethereal movements and unnatural quiet jumping down from the roof to the ground, then running in her direction before again leaping down to the beach. They only took long enough to wrap the rifle with her sword in his cloak before plunging into the cold water side by side, he holding the scarlet bundle over his head. She reached the tower first and waited for him to guide her to the ladder in the dark. They had decided that high-tide would be the best time to move, as the ladder wouldn't have been easily accessible when the water was lower. He followed her up, the rungs were cold and rough against their bare feet, but they were careful not to rush, falling had the potential to be fatal.

Reaching the top, chill from the wind and cold water they quickly moved to hide behind some crates next to a helipad. She stripped off her wet clothes as he opened up the dry bags and handed her dry ones, his superior night vision ensuring they each got the right articles.

While they were getting dressed, they heard footsteps approaching. The beam from a flashlight was heading their way. She looked to him, the moonlight making her expression of alarm easy to make out. Her shirt was only half buttoned and he had barely gotten his pants on. "Play along," he said quietly and closed the distance between them, moving his gloved left hand to the back of her neck hiding it under her hair while his right wrapped around her back, pulling her close. Vincent ducked his head into her neck and her body went still in surprise. He could almost hear her racing pulse, and felt a little guilty for not having the time to explain. Raising his head slightly, he whispered into her ear, "Don’t let him look down and see our gear." He inhaled and his nose wrinkled, the smell of the polluted salt water clung to her hair, they'd need to bathe once they were clear and got a room.

Through the skin of his face on her neck she could feel him, this wasn't a lustful action, he was marshalling his emotions, putting a layer of calm over a cluster of feelings she couldn't make out. He hooked his hand under her knee, as it had gone down her thigh her spine went ramrod straight. He lifted her leg up along his thigh, forcing her to grab his shoulders with her hands to keep her balance with a gasp. She felt an apologetic wave come off of him. Knowing that this was an act didn't stop her from blushing from head to toe, there was no way he couldn't feel how hot her skin was. She barely had time to register the plan he had intended as a light came around the crates and shone on them. "Who's there?"

She took on a deer in the headlights look staring at the trooper and mirroring his shock. The brief pause gave her the time she needed for the scenario Vincent was setting up to click in her mind. Fortunately her genuine shock and embarrassment worked as the appropriate fuel for the moment. "Oh my god!" she squirmed out of Vincent's grip, turning the troops way for a moment, he caught an eyeful of her cleavage, her shirt unbuttoned down to her navel. She made a show of gasping in surprise, clutching her shirt shut and turning her back to the stranger as though trying to hide herself against Vincent's chest, the guard looked at the two for a moment longer as she started manically buttoning her shirt. "You said we wouldn't get caught!"

"Isn't risk part of the thrill?" he smirked at her, casually reaching for his jacket, and putting it on while her body still obscured most of the scars on his torso. Pretending to be miffed, she turned her face away from him, nose in the air.

"What-" the trooper stopped himself from asking what they were doing here, that much was obvious. "How did you get here?"

Vincent strolled over to the trooper, his jacket still open, depending on the shadows to hide the details. Putting an arm around his shoulder he turned the other man away from Ralena., as if to give her privacy. In the motion he also took the man a few steps closer to the edge of the platform. "I'm just a SOLDIER just trying to enjoy my leave, ok? My girl loves a little danger," he drawled, "So we checked in and I gave her a tour, then we stayed until after hours and well… you know." He let the suggestion hang in the air a moment before continuing. "I would really appreciate it if you don't mention me specifically," He let his eyes glow as he smirked at the man, Vincent knew SOLDIERs didn't usually have red eyes, but the Mako glow was needed to sell the story. It was stupid to assume that the man would never talk about this, but asking him to not get specific should be do-able. "Look, I'm pretty sure she's not going to let me get anywhere now, so we'll just get our stuff and I'll show her out, ok? I don't want to delay your patrol any more than we already have."

Ralena listened to their words and emotions as she finished buttoning up her shirt and pulled on her boots. Vincent was playing it way cooler than he felt, but she found his ability to suddenly turn into a suave soldier impressive. The guard had gone from suspicious to jealous pretty quickly, there were a few seconds after Vincent had wrapped up his explanation where the man was uncertain. Probably debating on whether or not it was worth reporting them. When his state switched to resigned she let herself relax. "Thanks," she heard Vincent say as he became calmer as well. "Here, have a few rounds on me later."

The man's mood brightened as he no doubt received some cash, "Of course, have a good evening, Sir, Miss. Be careful leaving the airstrip, you don't want to fall off the edge in the dark."

Vincent buttoned his jacket as he watched the man leave, waiting for him to get far enough away that the flashlight couldn't illuminate them before going back for his boots. "That went well…" she said, folding the brightly colored drybag to hide it in her normal one. Her heart was still racing, though she had trouble determining what the main reason for that was.

"If it hadn't, he'd be in the sea right now," her companion replied, his usual professional personality firmly back in place.

They met no resistance leaving the air strip, security in places like this were, thankfully, one way. There was the assumption that if you managed to get in no one had to stop you from leaving. As they made their way through the streets he saw that there were more alleys that went further into the cliff, probably lower end housing, for some reason the ShinRa certainly like to keep the little people out of the sunlight, like it was a luxury item. Walking through a pedestrian tunnel that went under the cannon, they eventually found a hotel relatively close to the docks where they would wait out the night and wash off the stink of Junon's waters.

"Sorry about what happened," he said after she got out of the shower. "Given our state of dress I couldn't think anything else in the moment, and I didn’t have time to explain"

She fought down a blush and averted her eyes, "It's ok… I understand, if I had enough time I might have come up with the same plan." As he took his turn in the bathroom she used the hair dryer and brushed out her hair. The brush scraped the back of her neck and she shivered slightly, remembering his hand against the back of her neck. She sighed, putting her hands down and took a deep breath, it was nothing. It had been an act and her body reacted, that was all. No big deal. They were comrades, travelling companions, friends. That was all, and that was that.

She went back to brushing her hair and a minute later stopped again. She wished they could have lingered longer on the airstrip. She would have liked to just sit there for a while with the sounds of the ocean looking at the stars, far more visible with the power out. It made her think of Sephiroth and the first time he showed her the stars…

By the time Vincent left the bathroom she was laying down in one of the beds well under the covers, either asleep, or trying to be. He smiled slightly when he saw that she left her hairbrush on his bed, and he thankfully took it up to deal with his unruly mane.

***

Finding unofficial passage from Junon to Costa Del Sol was much easier than either of them had expected. Apparently, they could thank President Rufus for that. Whether it was his plans or the way his announcements affected the economy, there was no end of ships going back and forth. More ships led to more opportunities for people to make a little side cash by bringing stowaways onboard.

They looked around a bit before finding their fastest option. The price was a little steep for a spot in the cargo hold, but it was the fastest ship leaving later that afternoon. "I am not going to sleep well," Ralena muttered as she looked at their little corner on top of a few crates but behind others stacked around it. Both of them took a long look at the straps holding the crates into place. If they fell over on them it would likely be fatal… well Vincent might turn into a monster and turn this trip into a horror movie, but she would definitely be dead.

Satisfied with their safety, if not their comfort, Vincent looked over at her, "It's only 4 days, you could stay awake." They'd managed to get on one of the faster delivery ships, but it was a far cry from a speed boat.

She looked at him flatly, "Ha. ha. How are those magic sleeping powers of yours?" Just because she got used to his deadpan humor didn't mean she always found it funny. _He_ probably _could_ stay up the whole time, or even sleep through it. He raised a brow at her, but she just dropped it. "I'll just try to do cat naps, I think, I doubt trying to sleep for a solid block will happen. I guess the better question is what will we do for all of that time?" The night helmsman and a few of the deck hands were in on the stowaway arrangement, and they could only go on deck at night, so much of their time would be spent in the hold.

"Clean our gear?" He suggested, practically, his tone was the verbal equivalent of a shrug.

"Yeah, and what about the other 94 hours? I picked up some playing cards, but I'm not sure how much that will occupy us."

He thought a moment longer, then turned to her and said, "If you want, we can work on your hand-to-hand."

***

Avalanche had finished packing up their camp for the day, and Yuffie was seated under the trees where the forest bordered the grass, eyes following a form that moved across plains in front of her.

"How do you think she's managing that?" Yuffie mused aloud.

"Maybe it is lighter than it looks?" Cait Sith suggested.

Red XIII shook his head, "I'm sure she's stronger than she looks. She can carry a lot after all."

"I dunno," Yuffie pondered, "How good of a grip can you get with a beak like that? I mean, you have teeth and I'm not sure you could carry it that well, especially while running."

"She does have height on me for that," the feline consented, "Better leverage."

Iris ran across by the group again, the Buster Sword held firmly in her beak. Cloud was positioned in the path of the blue chocobo and tried to grab at the bird without cutting himself on the sword as she ran by. He was doing an admirable job of not cursing or yelling at those of them who sat by watching.

"Should we be helping?" Yuffie said after another pass, clearly enjoying the show.

Barret leaned back against a tree, arms folded behind his head, "Nah, I'm enjoying the break and the SOLDIER has plenty of energy to spare."

***

She stretched her arms up and spun about under the bright light, it felt so freeing to be out of the tight little space without a test going on. "This is great Seph!" she smiled broadly. "I can feel the wind and the sunlight! It feels real! Too bad the grass doesn't feel like anything…"

"Well, the technology does have its limits." Tonight was another trip to the Training Room. After he let her run around the fake grassy fields for a while he waved her over. "I would like to talk to you about something."

She happily trotted over in the awkwardly sized SOLDIER uniform he brought for her to sneak out in. "What is it?"

"Would you like to learn some fighting?"

She blinked in surprise, "Like Martial Arts?" she asked.

He smirked, always the proper terminology with her. "Yes, like Martial Arts."

"Why do you want to teach me that?" She was honestly confused at the prospect, he hadn't told her his occupation.

He'd happened to see her earlier that day when he was in for a routine checkup. She had been doing endurance testing and Hojo had asked what he thought about her physical performance. He never realized how disconnected from humanity Hojo sounded before. For some reason he hadn't thought the man would be like that all of the time. "Because I am feeling disobedient, and Hojo doesn't want you to know it."

She shuddered at the name, Sephiroth usually made a point of not using it, but every once in a while it would slip out. "What does it entail?"

"Fortunately, the lab takes care of conditioning for you. So we'd start by learning some basic blocks and punches. You can't let them know, of course."

A glint of mischief came to her eyes, "I like having secrets from them."

"I warn you, there will be times where it might look like I'll hit you. But for now I'll be holding back."

"Ok," she said, by now she trusted him. It had been months and nothing they had done had been so much as mentioned by the doctor or his assistants. And while it wasn't real, he had shown her the sky again and she couldn't imagine a better gift.

"Let's begin with a basic fighting stance…"

***

"Do you feel that?" he asked.

"Yes," she said through clenched teeth. Vincent was holding her hand behind her back, arm twisted awkwardly, and her face was pushed against the side of a crate. She tapped a hand on the wood, he released her, and she shook out the limb. She hadn't twisted his wrist properly this time.

"Try it on me again," Vincent instructed.

She sighed, aside from letting her do the move the first time so that she got the concept right, she hadn't managed to pin him once. He'd let her start the move, but if she didn't execute it correctly he would break out and pin her. Apparently Turks, at least in his day, were all taught submission holds. She wasn't sure if it was his mentality in the act of training or something else. But in this session he'd had no reaction to the few times she contacted his left hand, even with the gauntlet off. The glove always remained on.

In general, she liked learning new techniques, and Vincent’s no nonsense teaching methods reminded her of how Flynn and Sephiroth had taught her before. But being unable to get these moves down was grating on her. "Do you think this is really necessary?" she asked in frustration, taking up her fighting stance again.

"Do you think you will always have your blades?" He countered as they circled each other.

She almost answered that she would, but then thought another second and relented. She would pin him down at least _once_ before she gave up. The beginning was always fine, he would punch with either arm, then she would parry with her arm, grab his wrist and… Somewhere after that she had always messed up. Sometimes it was the next move, sometimes a few more after that. She was used to making small motions to get things done with her blades, but using her hands directly was somehow different in a way that just wasn't clicking yet.

His fist came forward, and a few seconds later she was pinned beneath him this time. Grimacing she twisted around a few seconds before she felt she might dislocate her shoulder. One of his hands moved and pressed gently, but firmly down on her shoulder blade to stop her movement. "Dammit…" she muttered and tapped her other hand on the ground. They got up and she looked up at him with determination blazing in her eyes, "Again."

Why, oh why hadn't she suggested playing cards first?

***

The redhead was sitting at his desk, feet propped up on it, leaned back and staring at the ceiling. Reno had flown back to Midgar the night before, glad to be away from his "manager" who was now prepping the Highwind for Rufus' inevitable trip to the Promised Land… whenever they found it. He wondered if Rufus was just finding ways to keep Heidegger busy or testing him. After all, Rufus had only been off of house arrest for a few months before taking over as president and was still assessing the strengths and weaknesses of the department heads for himself.

The Turk debated making paper airplanes, but decided that it wouldn't fit the attitude he wanted the grunts to see. Not that people regularly came to the Turks office. Their space was in a corner of the 58th floor, a secured lobby with glass walls that would fog at the flip of a switch. That led to their office space, over half of which were empty now. Behind that was a residential common room and the same number of apartments. There was nothing stopping a Turk from having off site living quarters, Tseng did, but Reno didn't see the point. If the company provided him a place to stay he had other things he could spend his money on… mostly trips, fancy food and good booze.

"Have you read the new report?" His partner asked walking into the room, standing in front of his desk.

"No," he scoffed, "Should I? Avalanche is Avalanche. What could be new?"

"New members," came the reply as Rude held up some folders, "The ones who escaped Midgar last week."

That caught his attention. "Oh yeah? Sure let me see the write ups."

His partner handed him one of the folders, and still standing, he opened one of the others he had, “Bad pictures again."

Wow, Rude wasn’t kidding. A cropped image of a man with long black hair and a high collar covering most of his face was the first in this file. How was he supposed to identify this guy if he was wearing something different? “-Tch- You’d think they would learn to process them properly as soon as they come in. Also, why did it take over a week for us to get these? Did the copier break down?” They both suspected the reason why. Change in leadership had shaken up a lot of the departments. Not to mention that Scarlet and Heidegger, the most notorious department heads, were globe-trotting with Rufus looking for Sephiroth. People couldn’t decide if they should slack off with them being absent or if they should work on something to impress them and Rufus. At a time like this routine paperwork tended to get put off. After a minute with the first file, Reno thought something was strange, “Huh…”

“What is it?”

“Nothing, just… doesn't this Valentine guy sound familiar?”

His partner was unconcerned. “Yep, keep reading.”

“Oh hey, he’s Veld’s old partner. No wonder they were able to escape. " He flipped the page and saw an old employee photo, then looked back at the first one. "Damn, he looks good for his age."

"I wouldn't be jealous," Rude said, "Look at his transfers."

Reno looked down and curled his lip at the listing for being transferred to the science department as a test subject under Hojo. That explained the red eyes. "What the fuck is this?" Reno said with disdain, "There's no way the Head of Admin Research would sign off on this bullshit."

"Original form is a John Doe, with a bad photo." Rude said darkly, "Seems someone did the actual research and put two and two together given the timing of the transfer and the death certificate."

Reno flipped through and glanced at the two documents in question. "Fucking amateurs," he sighed with disgust. "Dammit, now I know I'm glad we didn't get orders to chase down the poor bastard. What about the other one?”

Rude made an unhappy expression, which, if you didn’t know him, looked a lot like his regular expression, “Almost nothing on her, no last name, no birth date. No history to speak of.” Rude made another slight expression that his partner had learned to read a long time ago.

“Whatcha got?”

“Description says she has Mako green eyes.”

“Really? Lemme see this mystery woman.” Mako eyes was weird for someone with no records. As far as either of them knew the only way to get them was the procedure that SOLDIERS underwent. Nearly all of them were male, most of their eyes turned out blue or green, and every last one of them was well accounted for. There were a few rare cases as a result of Mako poisoning, but those people either died or remained unhealthy the rest of their lives. Such people were in no shape to escape ShinRa Tower and the city then go join renegade terrorist groups.

The picture was bad, like Rude had said, taken at a three quarters angle, scarlet hair half in her face, with a sour expression and green eyes blazing, it was clipped from a larger picture so the source of her irritation was not evident… there was something though. He flipped through the other pictures in the file, mostly low-res stills from bad security footage, and the woman's untied hair had a habit of always being partly in the way of her face.

One photo from a helmet cam showed her swinging a sword from the back of a motorcycle at the wearer, she was wearing a helmet too, so that photo didn't help with identification. Another was a pixelated shot taken through a maintenance door, where she was slicing up a guard while Valentine aimed at someone out of view, this was where his photo had been cropped from. The last photo solved the mystery of her angry profile pic. She was helping Valentine as troops escorted them as prisoners. He was clearly injured in the photo and she glared at a guard that was prodding him along with his rifle. Judging from the buildings in the background, it had been taken in Rocket Town.

He let his eyes trail up the stat sheet to actually read the information. For whatever reason, he read from the bottom up. A fencer, competent with materia, unknown, unknown, eyes, hair color, name...

Reviewing last report, that included Avalanche's latest movements. It took Rude a moment to realize that his partner had been quiet for longer than he would normally be for just reading a file. "See anything interesting?"

Rude wouldn’t know, but maybe... “Do we know this girl too?” he asked, holding up the picture of her fighting along the catwalk.

The man in the sunglasses looked at the picture over his lenses, a thoughtful look was on his face, then he shook his head. Scarlet hair, like the woman's and Reno's, was notable. He had known few others, but none that fit her description.

Reno looked at the image again, “I’m just thinkin…”

Rude raised a brow.

It looked like Reno was about to say something he thought was silly, but as he opened his mouth changed his mind. If it wasn’t Rude he was talking to, it would have gone unnoticed. “I bet with those smaller blades she'd be faster than Strife. If she's nearly as good she'd be fun to square off against.”

Rude shook his head, “It's not like she's a SOLDIER. But you can have dibs if we fight her.”

“Who knows?” He grinned. ”Maybe she and Strife were part of a super-secret ShinRa project.” They both knew the answer, at least as far as Strife was concerned. If she had been, they should have had more information on her, at least a last name. Even the spikey haired leader of Avalanche had info. They had records on him as a ShinRa infantryman up until Nibelheim. There had been no subject transfer orders for Zack Fair and Cloud Strife. Hojo had lumped them in with the unidentified citizens of Nibelheim that had been rounded up after the incident. After a 4 year gap Cloud was one of two escaped specimens, catatonic and dragged around by Zack. Then a few months ago he shows up with Avalanche, wielding Zack’s sword. The Turks knew why he'd had it.

The thought made Reno frown. Not for the first time, Reno wondered how things would have turned out if the Turks had gotten to Zack first, or even if they had picked up Cloud. They had given him up for dead… Not that they had cared about some ShinRa troop suffering from Mako poisoning. Zack had been their comrade, not Cloud.

He sighed and looked at the photo of the redhead again. If ShinRa didn't know who she was, she was probably a country girl or...

“I'm feelin' scrappy!” The redhead said suddenly, jumping out of his chair. “Knowing there's new players on the field has got my blood up. Let's go spar!”

Rude wasn't buying it. Something about the woman’s file had triggered something in his partner. For now, unless he asked for help, he would let him work through it on his own, as long as the mission wasn’t compromised.

***

The sun was shining down on the docks when they got off the ship. As they walked into the main thoroughfare she stretched her arms up and absorbed the sunlight and mood greedily. After four days of only seeing daylight through a porthole it was the most wonderful thing she could imagine. "Oh yeah," she breathed, "You feel that?"

He turned to her and saw vibrant green eyes smiling back at him, "I would guess not."

She laughed and her eyes dimmed but remained green. "People come here to forget about their problems and just spend a few days relaxing, it's great." A thought came to her and, hesitantly, she asked, "Do you… want to feel that?"

They had worked a little on her abilities on the ship as well. Detection was easy to try, she had laughed at the idea that they were basically playing hide-and-seek. They were able to determine roughly how far she could sense, close to fifty feet if there weren't many people active, but when they went on deck at night it seemed too many other people reduced the useful range as clusters of people fogged her senses. Projection was strange to practice, and she was surprised that he offered for her to try it on him. The range on that was much shorter and they found that touching her target made it come on stronger. The first time she made Vincent laugh out loud, she was so surprised that she had withdrawn her hand like she had been burned. It wasn't disturbing, per say, but the very idea of Vincent laughing so uproariously was so alien she hadn't known how to handle it.

"Thank you, but no," he replied politely, now that they were in a new place, he needed to feel as himself again. "We have an appointment to keep."

"Spoil sport," she said playfully, "I'll give Cloud a call, but let's find a place to sit down and get some decent food first." By the time they sat at a quiet outdoor café away from the main street and ordered, Ralena had decided to call Tifa instead. Afterall, she'd just ask to talk to the girls afterward anyway.

It was a little hard to hear over the plane engine running in the background. It turned out the others expected to arrive the next day. They would have arrived before the pair, if bad weather hadn't prevented them from travelling for two days. "If you're short on cash," Tifa practically yelled into the phone, "the inns on the edge of town, away from the tourist area, are pretty cheap." It was followed by sputtering mechanical noises and a colorful curse from the captain. Ralena wondered if the man was in a permanently bad mood or if it just happened to be the only thing she had heard from him so far.

"Shall we head over to get a room?" her companion said as soon as they had finished eating. She stared at him with a level I-can't-believe-you gaze. He was confused at her reaction, "Is there something else we need to do?"

She took a deep breath and sighed, she supposed that was just the way he was. Vincent was definitely a goal oriented man, which was great when each moment could get you shot or thrown into a cell. "Nooo," she said slowly, "But we don't have to worry about anything until tomorrow. I can tell you’re not a beach guy, but we can slow down. I'm sure we can find something to do that's relaxing."

He took a moment to look at the people around them, his appearance was conspicuous in Midgar, but here he stood out like an undertaker at a baby shower. "Did you have something in mind?"

She had plenty of ideas, but she was pretty sure karaoke, night clubs, and anything on the beach were things he would not be willing to participate in, she honestly wasn't sure they were things she wanted to do either. "This is a tourist town and today is…"

"Thursday," he supplied when she seemed to have trouble remembering.

"Yeah, so there should be something going on. Why don't we take our time finding an inn and see if we can't spot something to do on the way?" They were four blocks down and he seemed to have no interest in any of the events they had spotted. He just replied with non-committal 'hmms' at best. She didn't want to make him uncomfortable, and she was sure he wasn't shy, just quiet. "Am I fighting a losing battle?" she asked with blatant resignation in her voice.

"hmm?"

"You don't seem interested in anything," she sighed. "I'm just asking if you would rather do nothing tonight."

He looked at her, her senses hadn't been active since they left the café. That probably had to do with the visions of people she had been dodging while they walked down the street earlier. It had definitely looked strange to someone who couldn't see what she saw. "Sorry," he said, "I have never been very expressive."

She smirked, "I figured that out. But do you intend on staying in tonight?"

He shrugged, "The one band seemed vaguely interesting. But a quiet bar and a drink would be enough for me."

Relieved that she wouldn't be abandoning him to a night alone in the room she relaxed, "Ok, so we'll call the quiet bar plan B, and keep looking."

By the time they found an inn they had a few prospects for evening activities. They checked into a shared double room again and after they had both bathed and she had changed, she looked at him. She had ditched the vest and put on a clean, but nearly identical shirt and pair of pants. He, however was in his same attire sans cloak and head wrap. "We should get you a change of clothes." She said with some conviction. He raised a brow at her. "I'm not saying you show get a palm tree shirt and cargo shorts, but at least something else you can wear if you ever want to wash your clothes."

He looked down at the garments. There was only so much one could do while wearing them and he'd felt it would be inappropriate to be in his underwear with a woman sharing the same room, even if it didn't bother her. At least this time most of their travel had been in a ship, but it had been a week since its last proper laundering at the farm. It also would have been good to have the spare clothes when they had been in Junon, but at the time they hadn't known how much passage would cost them, so they had only gotten minimal supplies. "You have a point, but I imagine most of the shops will be closing soon."

She sighed, "Yeah, I guess we can put that on the to do list for tomorrow morning."

They left the Inn and had decided to checkout a local play at the Amphitheatre. It turned out it was short, but good, the set and costumes were low budget but the acting was better than they had expected. They were looking for somewhere to eat when she almost grabbed his arm, but stopped herself and reached for his shoulder instead. "I think I see something we should check out. Come on."

She went to the entrance of a narrow alley where an A-frame sign indicated a store at the back of the building. He followed too closely behind her to get a look at it but as she got to the shop window, lit with red and purple lights, he could see a triumphant smile on her face. "Perfect!" she said, "We might be able to shop for you after all."

Confused, he looked at the window with blackletter writing on it: _Dark Designs_. The window display had a black frilly dress, a Victorian jacket and shirt, and a few spiked and studded collars. He caught her eye and gave her a doubtful look.

"We can at least look," she said, "I'm sure they have less flashy stuff inside."

"Are you sure they're open?" he asked, "It is rather late."

"My understanding is that the people who buy this stuff are usually night owls." She gestured to him, "Case in point." She tried the door and was unsurprised that it opened. Still smiling she dragged him in.

Vincent was surprised at the varied selection, in addition to more modest clothing, the shop had articles with all sorts of different embellishments. Lace, frills, buckles, studs, netting, chains, _safety pins_, one outfit had an ungodly amount of useless zippers on it. She actually caught him admiring another jacket and reminded him he was looking for laundry day clothes, if he wanted it that was fine. "But the mission comes first," she smirked at him.

For fun, Ralena tried on a few things while he browsed. She'd popped out of the dressing room in a slim, shiny black corseted dress that hugged her torso like a second skin; a hooded jacket with long tails; and lastly a belted leather vest with a fishnet shirt underneath. She was surprised at how the fishnets highlighted her physique and resisted the urge to ask him to try one on just so she could see it… There she went again, when this was all over with she really had to get herself a boyfriend.

In the end, he chose a long sleeve, dark red shirt with an arcane looking design on it, possibly the symbol of a band he had never heard of. The pants he chose had the least amount of useless stuff attached to them that he could find, though there were a few extra pockets and straps. She ended up getting the vest which he thought looked like her old one, just with three belts around the waist of it.

With his purchases in hand, and hers already being worn, they found a small local pub close to their inn and grabbed a table and some drinks. As he pulled out her chair, she realized that Vincent had been exhibiting several habits one would call gentlemanly behavior when he got the chance. The chances had been rare, admittedly, not many doors to open in a cargo hold or traveling through the wilderness. In fights, trusting your comrade was more important, but a helping hand up at the end was always appreciated. She smirked, he had pulled out her chair at dinner with Flynn as well, and Ma had called out Pa for not doing that for her more often.

"I think the woman at the shop would have married you for your gauntlet," she said once they had their first round in hand.

"I'm surprised she didn’t convince you to buy the fishnet shirt."

"If I didn't think it would get completely ruined, she might have," she grinned. "But seriously, it's just not my style."

He shrugged, "You looked good in it."

She tried not to blush as they quietly went back to their drinks for a minute or two, listening to the music playing off of the jukebox and reading the menu. After they ordered some food he spoke up again, "I feel I should ask…"

"Yeah?"

With other patrons about, he chose his words carefully, "With your talents, is it ok for you to drink?"

She shrugged, "I should be alright, the mood around here is pretty mellow, and I don't plan on getting hammered. I am aiming at keeping the lights off, so warnings are appreciated." Their meal was mostly companionable silence punctuated with small bits of conversation. They had spent so much time in each other's company it was getting hard to come up with topics that didn't sound inane in one's head. "I have a question," she said when they were nearly done with their meal, "You know I didn't mean to pry but… did you actually enjoy yourself while we were… visiting Midgar?"

He smiled with a chuckle, "I suppose I did. I think the challenges reminded me of my old life, when I first started my career at ShinRa. I felt… alive." He caught her staring off, a thoughtful look on her face. "Do you think that's odd?"

"For a moment," she admitted. "Then I thought about how I actually like fighting." Combat was a strange haven for her. Where the _now_ mattered most and she could focus on what needed to be done and emotion didn't seem to be as important. "I mean I would be as happy with a good sparring session as monster hunting." She cast her gaze around the bar. "But thinking about it, a lot of people would find that odd too. Maybe even scary."

"That they would," he said, holding up his glass. "To oddities."

She smirked, "To oddities." They clinked them and she emptied what was left in her glass, before ordering another.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I originally thought that the docks were accessible from lower Junon, which they aren't. Which meant I then had to worry about how they got into the upper city as fugitives. So that was a whole new set of stuff I didn't have to add in… but I did, because awkward/sexy scenes are... something
> 
> Also, I did stumble on a Goth shop in New Orleans like this once.


	9. Reunion

The next day just before lunchtime the pair was waiting at one of the smaller docks near the edge of town. Having done laundry that morning at the Inn's facilities, Vincent was back in his usual attire while Ralena was wearing a sundress similar to the one she wore at the farmhouse. When she came out in it that morning he had been surprised to find that she had packed it at all. She said it was Ma Telly's idea. Since they didn't know how long they would be waiting at Costa Del Sol, Ma had said she should pack something appropriate for the weather. He noted that, unlike what she wore at the farm, this one had longer sleeves that covered her number tattoo.

He had watched as had she turned slightly in front of the mirror. Not exactly admiring herself, so much as she was trying to figure out what was wrong. She muttered that a necklace would have pulled it together nicely, but then shrugged it off. Front line fighters like her usually didn't bother with jewelry, it was too likely to get caught on something. He said nothing, aesthetically he agreed with her assessment. But the low scooping neckline left the flesh from her neck almost to her shoulder bare and unobstructed, as was his personal preference. A necklace would also interrupt how the collarbone framed the hollow of her neck.

There was a brief flash of memory, his face against the hot skin of her neck in the dark. He killed the thought before it went any further, vaguely concerned that his mind went down that path.

At the docks, Iris was standing beside them, she had used the summoning whistle for the bird and it had arrived well ahead of the plane. There had been several minutes where the chocobo nearly bowled her over with its affection and she had showered it with apologies.

While they were waiting by the docks she looked him up and down. "Aren't you hot in that?" she asked, exasperation clear on her face. He wasn't sure if it was because he wasn't wearing the other clothes anymore or from trying to move Iris, who kept trying to get Ralena's attention and was currently shoving herself between them.

Stepping away from the feathered nuisance, he shook his head, "It seems my tolerance for high and low temperatures is more than average."

Much better than average if she had to guess. Her temperature tolerance was higher too, but he was wearing two layers of clothing and a _cloak_ in _beach weather_. "Talk about being cursed with awesome," she pouted with envy.

"What was that?" He asked, not having quite understood her.

"Nothing..." She said quickly, "Oh look! Here they come."

He was surprised at the small wave of joy that came off of her for a moment. They hadn't known Avalanche that long, but he supposed a warrior like her had trouble making real friends with farmers. He certainly didn't have many friends outside of the other Turks back in his day. As the Tiny Bronco pulled into one of the slips Ralena waved them down, though she was certain that Vincent's red cloak and the blue chocobo made better signals than she did. Yuffie practically leapt off of the wing of the plane before it stopped moving. Stumbling a little on the landing she closed the distance "Omigod I can't believe you guys made it!"

Ralena laughed as the wutai warrior grabbed her hands. Iris warked unhappily as her owner's attention was taken away from her. "It's not like we haven't been talking on the phone most days for the past week."

"I know but, -what are you wearing?!" The younger girl quickly retracted her hands as the chocobo bodily separated the two.

"It's called a dress, Yuffie." She finally commanded the bird to sit, which it seemed to do in a huff, but obeyed.

"I know, but I didn't think we were taking a vacation day."

"We're not," Cloud said, from where he was helping tie off the plane. "But we may as well take it easy the rest of today."

"Define, 'take it easy.'" Barret requested, planting his feet on the dock. The large man was in good shape, but there was no denying the former SOLDIER had more energy the he did.

"We've got that lead to follow up on about that shrine. Let's just make finding out where it is our priority for today. Then we can check it out tomorrow."

"You should have said something yesterday," Ralena said, "We could have looked into it."

Cloud shook his head, "You just spent 4 days in a _cargo hold_ I wasn't going to make you work after all that." Vincent was impressed. He didn't know if it was the blonde's idea, but the fact that he didn't forget about everyone's comfort and need to recharge was a good sign. Even it was only a half day.

"Well in that case, I spotted a restaurant that had a big outdoor seating area on the way here, I bet it will fit all of us."

"As long as they have hot food," Aerith chimed in.

"Yes, please." Tifa added, "I am tired of sandwiches and meat on a stick."

"My question is," Cid started, hopping off of the plane, "Do they have beer?"

The empath's head swam for a moment, "I… didn't look at the menu to be honest. But there's plenty of places if that one doesn't work out."

"What about rooms?" Tifa asked.

"That I did manage, and I put money down to hold rooms for the place we're at. I made sure we have enough beds, no cots like in Rocket Town."

"Thank the gods," Barret groaned, "My back needs a night in a real bed fer a change."

That got a couple of laughs from the group before Ralena stepped past a few of the others towards the captain, reaching forward a hand. "We didn't get the chance to formally meet, I'm Ralena."

"Cid Highwind," he gave a crooked grin, showing teeth and taking her hand in a firm handshake she thought Pa would have been proud of. "I heard you hit that fat-ass Palmer with a truck. That makes you a-ok in my book." She laughed nervously, but didn't correct him. With the plane secured, and the last official introduction made the group began the mission of finding a place that nine people would agree to eat at. Fortunately they weren't too picky at this point and the qualifications of 'hot food' and 'beer' were easily met.

"Hey, Ralena." Cid called across the table after a while, "I gotta question for ya."

"Shoot."

"You gotta last name?"

She shook her head, "Not that I remember," she said casually. It wasn't until she saw Aerith's expression across the table that she realized this could lead to questions she wasn't ready to answer yet.

"Really?" Cait Sith asked. "How's that work?"

"Orphan in the slums," she said honestly… Well that was how it started. "Sometimes I use 'Walker' when I need one."

"What happened in Wutai?" Vincent asked, abruptly changing the subject, before it got too deep into the redhead's past.

The rest of the table turned to Yuffie who tried to suppress a sudden coughing fit. Apparently he had chosen the right topic to divert attention. "What?" the ninja asked.

"When you were in Wutai," Vincent repeated, "You ran into the Turks, right?"

Cloud almost had a smirk in his eyes. The tone was subdued as normal, but there was a hint of teasing in it. "Well it started when Yuffie stole all of our materia-"

"You did what?!" The redhead exclaimed, honestly surprised.

She stole their materia, and was apparently still with the team... Vincent resisted the urge to shake his head. What was he going to do with these people?

After lunch the group got their things from the plane and headed over to the Inn. Compared to other places the rooms were smaller, with two beds per room. At the restaurant they had discussed the arrangements. With Red XIII insisting that he would be fine on any floor and Cait Sith not needing a bed they only required eight beds. While they were getting sorted, it didn't escape Aerith and Tifa's notice that Vincent moved his things out of the room that the flower girl and Nanaki were moving into with the redhead.

****

The next morning they agreed that it was unnecessary for everyone to go to the site. Cid would stay to work on the Tiny Bronco, it wasn't meant to be used as a boat so there were constant improvements and repairs for it to remain viable.

"I'd like to stay in town," Ralena said while they were discussing it. A preference that was exemplified by the fact that she was wearing her sundress again.

"Are you sure?" Vincent asked with a level of concern that confused the others. "It's the weekend, it'll be crowded."

"It's not like Midgar, I should be fine." She assured. "Especially if I stay out of the main market area."

"What's the big deal?" Barret asked.

“I have a bit of agoraphobia because… I can get overwhelmed in crowds,” she explained, omitting the reason, she hadn’t had the chance to tell them about her extra senses yet. She wasn't even technically _afraid_ of crowds, but she could easily lose herself if she didn't keep her mind focused on a goal... like getting Vincent to relax a little. “I want to work on it. Besides, I would like to have a little time with Iris today too.”

A few members of the group shared amused smiles. The bird had grown quite ornery over the past few days. As though she was beginning to blame them for her missing master. She menaced Cloud the most, as though jockeying for the position of top chocobo. She would constantly raise her crest and move in front of him, so that the others could not see him. One morning, he woke to a scattering of dirt falling on his face as she had pulled back his sleeping bag and was scratching at the dirt to spray it over him. After that Cloud bought a tent.

"Don't worry, I'll keep an eye on her," Aerith smiled to the red eyed man.

"Thanks, but I'm not a child," The empath said, not sure if she should be offended or appreciate the gesture.

"I thought you'd want to go, Aerith," Cloud said.

She shook her head, "Believe it or not, I'm not as fit as you and Tifa, I'd slow you guys down. Besides Nanaki and I discussed it last night. He has more education on the Cetra than I do. If you find carvings or something he can interpret them better than I can. If it's really worth studying then you can just call and I'll come on over."

After a little bit more discussion, it was decided that Cloud, Tifa, Red XIII and Vincent would go to check out the site. It was a few miles up the coast, nestled in a small cave a ways up from the beach, they should be able to make it there and back on foot before nightfall.

***

When they were a good half hour down the beach Tifa fell into step alongside Vincent. "So how have you and Ralena been getting along?"

"As well as always," he said, as though the woman knew what that meant.

"Did you share rooms a lot on the way here?" She asked, trying not to sound _too_ interested.

"Yes," he said, seeing nothing odd in it, "We didn't have much spare money, and it's not much different then sharing a camp."

"Oh…" Tifa was disappointed to hear that logic, she wondered if the redhead felt the same way. "Did she buy the dress while you were in town?"

He shook his head, "We stopped by her home and she picked up more clothes. Apparently Mary suggested it."

_Her home, huh? _She resisted the urge to sigh in relief. At least it wasn't only herself and Aerith that saw it. Though she wasn't sure if the man was even capable of being attracted to anyone. He answered every question with the same even tone that didn't seem to contain any hint of interest. But he had shown immediate concern when she had mentioned doing something outside of her comfort zone. "I didn’t know how she felt about crowds before today. How was it getting through Midgar?"

There was an instant, where the brunette caught something in his face. As though a memory flashed through his mind, but with as obscured as his face was, she couldn’t make out the expression. "There were a few… rough moments," he said "But the desire to not get caught outweighed her issues. It never made her a burden." 

There is was again, she thought. A moment of _something_ and a weird subtle undertone she couldn't put her finger on. And the rest of it sounded almost like he was… proud of her? No, that sounded too paternal. But there was something in his voice when he praised her actions. "What do you think her strong suits are?" Tifa asked, she saw Cloud peek back at this question. For obvious reasons, their leader was interested to hear the answer.

"Aside from her combat skills. She knows a lot about outdoor travel, and tracking. It turns out she was an apprentice monster hunter for a few years. She's good with animals, individuals and reading people, and knows how to stay focused when it matters." He listed it like he was reading off a dossier. She should have expected him to give a practical report.

"What about weaknesses?" Cloud asked.

_Perfect,_ Tifa thought, she was happy that Cloud had asked it. She wanted to hear how he answered the question, and now it didn't look like she was steering the whole conversation.

"So far, she is too stubborn to let them get in the way. Large crowds give her trouble, so she doesn't do well in compact urban environments. She pushed herself too much a few times, which didn't set us back… too much." There was that weird pause again, something must have happened. "In addition she never learned to drive any sort of vehicle."

"Didn't she run over Palmer?" Nanaki asked.

"Accident, she hit the wrong petal."

Cloud chuckled, "Could've fooled us."

There was hope yet, Tifa smirked. When Cloud asked about her weaknesses he didn't really have anything bad to say, and the tone was accepting of them. He may have been like that with everyone, but she still considered it a good sign. The conversation switched to Cloud asking similar questions about Vincent himself. She paid closer attention than was warranted, but that certain undercurrent of his voice was absent when he talked about himself.

While not inept, Vincent considered himself weaker in hand to hand than his current companions. Not that anyone would fault him for it, it wasn't like Cloud could do much from range without a limit break or magic. His most obvious weakness, he felt, was his limit break, which caused him to lose control. His marksmanship extended to sniping up to 350 yards reliably without a spotter, but he hadn’t tested himself since being altered, so it could be longer now. Otherwise his training gave him skills in information gathering, some level of espionage and strategic analysis of a situation. He was good at short term ruses, but felt he lacked the proper mentality for long term undercover assignments. The last bit included a set of skills that Cloud had never considered them needing, but now that it was on the table he'd have to keep it in mind for later.

A few minutes after the conversation died down and the group spread out again, Tifa suddenly pondered aloud, "Maybe I should pick up a nice laundry day dress too. Ralena looked nice in hers…"

"She does," he replied quietly but quicker than she had expected. Again his tone was plain, as though he were stating a fact. She resisted the urge to smile, she couldn't wait to tell Aerith.

***

"Why don't we go for a walk and chat? I feel like I hardly know you." Aerith asked the redhead after the group split up. Cid and Barret had gone to work on the plane, and Cait Sith said that he would do some more research in his real body.

"Sure, I'd like that, maybe Yuffie… where'd she go?"

"Back to sleep I imagine," Aerith smirked, "She's been complaining about not getting enough sleep. But I think that's just teenagers, you know?"

She didn't actually. When she was Yuffie's age her wake up time was dictated by the lab, and while she had been really sleepy somedays that was because Sephiroth always visited in the early hours in the morning. It was almost funny to think of her life being the opposite of so many others. Her "boogeymen" wore white lab coats in the bright of day and her savior had come late at night dressed in black.

The two ended up walking down the beach, passing tourists and chatting about random things, like favorite foods and musical tastes. Sometimes, the redhead would drop random mentions of Vincent, like how he seemed oddly attached to wearing his outfit all the time, even after they got him something else at the goth shop. That fact was followed by a laugh and a twenty minute tangent about said store.

"Speaking of," Aerith said, "How was your trip here with Vincent?"

"Better than being alone, that's for sure," she said. "I traveled to Nibelheim with just Iris before. It was nice to have human company this time around."

"Really? He seems so quiet."

Ralena shrugged, "Everyone talks less in a larger group. I mean he is pretty quiet, don't get me wrong, but he's hardly mute." The cetra laughed. "It's true," the empath defended, "He really is good company."

Eventually, they found a slightly isolated place to sit and the two began to compare notes on their abilities. When it came up that Aerith could communicate with dead people, including her own mother, Ralena was really curious to know how that worked.

"It's not like I can talk to her the way I talk to living people. It's more feelings and whispers, also the occasional dreams. When its humans, they usually aren't that long dead," There was a pause, where the she thought about the day she had been tending her flowers and she had felt Zack's apology for not keeping his promise. "On the other hand the Ancients, the Cetra, can keep their form in the Lifestream until they decide to dissipate and rejoin the cycle. My mother told me when you finally made it back onto real grass, for example."

"That's… specific." The redhead, replied, a little confused.

Aerith laughed, "All of the Mako reactors around Midgar drain the life from the planet, the ground there is like numb scar tissue. Mother couldn't tell me much about you before that."

Ralena chuckled, "Does she keeps such close tabs on all of your friends?"

"No, but I did pray for you after you got captured, so she probably kept an eye out for you because of that." She didn't have the heart to tell the other woman that her mother, Ilfana, was keeping an eye on her because it was _her_ DNA that was used on Ralena. It would change nothing and cause her unnecessary distress. If everything went well, then maybe they could talk about it another day. Aerith had always wondered what it would be like to have a sister and wondered if the pseudo-blood connection really made much of a difference. Tifa was far and away the closest thing she'd had to a true friend in a long time, and Yuffie… ok maybe Yuffie _was_ like a little sister. She smiled at the thought. Avalanche was becoming like its own bizarre little family, it was a shame it took circumstances like this to bring it about.

The two women chatted a little while longer, then strolled back towards the town with the intent of grabbing the others and getting lunch.

***

"Why is it-," Tifa started, her fist impacting the giant crabs shell and cracking it, "that these places are always crawling with monsters?"

A gunshot resounded through the cave and another hole appeared in the shell. "I thought Mako attracted them." Vincent said.

Leaving a trail of blue light behind him, Red XIII rushed the creature, knocking it over and onto its back. "That is an incorrect conclusion." He said.

Cloud leapt up and slammed his sword down in between the plates on the decapod's underside. "You know why?" He twisted the massive blade, making a sickening crunching noise and pulled it out, withdrawing at the same time.

The feline prowled around the twitching form, unsure if it was truly dead. Vincent stepped up and fired two shots into the area he approximated its brain to be. It ceased twitching and Red XIII sat down. "According to grandfather the life around a Mako spring tends to grow bigger. We think it's because the exposure to the living energy of the planet infuses them with more than normal properties."

"Oh… so you don't _know_ know," Cloud smirked.

The feline stuck out his tongue at him.

*******

The sun beat down on the man, he was seated on a towel on the wing, that was getting increasingly greasy the longer he worked there. He was having trouble deciding on if he should make the damn thing a fly again, or if he should just make it a better boat. With two more people to accommodate, the boat option was looking more practical. If they put a platform or netting between the supports for the tail fins it would make more room to sit that wasn't on the metal wings. He'd probably need some better floats for the back too…

Damn the ShinRa for taking the skies from him. If they weren't in a race against them and Sephiroth then he could've taken the time to do this all properly. Cid was making constant adjustments to the motors, trying to improve their speed. As it was right now, the chocobo was faster over water than the plane, at least the plane didn't get tired and could carry everyone.

A wrench fell off of the wing and thankfully landed on the dock below instead of the water. He gave a tired curse and moved to go get it.

Before he could, the wrench presented itself over the edge. "Can I help?" a female voice said.

He looked over and saw the redhead holding up the tool. He took it with a grateful nod. "Are you a mechanic?" he asked, clearly he suspected he knew the answer.

"No, but I know the tools, I'd past them to Pa all the time when he was fixing stuff on the farm." She hopped up onto the wing with an ease that he had only seen from people in their group and well trained ShinRa lackeys. "Besides, I needed to get away from the crowds for a bit."

"-pfft- can't be worse than Yuffie, hand me those pliers would ya?"

She looked into the toolbox, brushing her scarlet locks behind her ear. "Needle nose, or the adjustable one?"

He smirked, at least she knew what they looked like. "The second, and they're called 'slip-joint' pliers."

"Noted." She crouched down, handed him the tool, then dug into a small bag she'd been carrying, "Aerith asked me to bring you something to drink, you want a water or beer?" she offered. The Captain hadn't left his work to join them for lunch, so the Cetra had asked Ralena to go check on him. "I also brought you a BLT extra B, per her orders."

He nodded gratefully, and for the moment, took the water. "Aren't you worried 'bout your dress?"

"Are you going to cut open any lines?"

"Not on purpose."

She smiled at him, "Then it should be fine."

"You mentioned 'Pa,' thought you said you was an orphan?" he asked, wiping his hands as clean as possible and settling down to take the sandwich. If Aerith had sent it along then he had best eat it before she came back later to force feed it to him.

"I am, Ma and Pa took me in when I was a teenager, after I finally got out of Midgar…" Her voice trailed off and the older man noticed a shadow over her expression. Whatever prompted her to leave must not have been a pleasant memory. Midgar was the kind of place that few people really bothered to leave. It took a lot of motivation to break the chains of that city. Cid may have been boorish and overbearing at times, but he felt like asking about her reason for leaving was a bit too familiar for someone he basically met yesterday.

He finished his sandwich and went back to work. For the most part there was little talk between them. Cid wasn't the type to want exchange informational tidbits like favorite color while he has working. "Aerith and I were hanging out when Shera called her to check up on things," she said. There was little she knew of that they had in common to talk about.

He had slowed for an instant when she said the name, then gave a brief snort. "Oh yeah? How's she doin'?"

"She seemed fine, if a little worried about you."

He scoffed, "That sounds like Shera, always worried about nothin'."

Aerith hadn't been joking about the Captain's callous manner. "Why do you say that?"

"The woman's so particular 'bout everything, an' she knows I can take care of myself. Sometimes I think she just likes to worry. Gets on my nerves."

Ralena watched him for a moment, he had barely looked away from his work while he talked. Clearly these thoughts were nothing new to him. Aerith had her bring Cid refreshments for a reason. It seemed, at least when he was fixing things, that maybe he _didn’t_ take care of his basic needs. It seemed that Shera's worries were likely well grounded in reality.

***

The shrine was a beautiful sight, simple carved stone work around a natural Mako spring. A small rock formation had grown up from the center, it looked like a tree branch, with a trio of small crystals forming on it.

"Oh wow," Tifa breathed, "A natural Mako spring."

"What are the crystals?" Vincent asked.

"Naturally formed materia," Nanaki answered him.

At the words there was a moment where Cloud went oddly still, before shaking his head slightly. Vincent narrowed his eyes at this. From travelling with Ralena, he recognized the look of someone shaking off a mental fog. He might have believed that he was misreading the situation, if it wasn't for the look on Tifa's face. The worry he had seen in her when they first met, clearly Vincent had misunderstood the reason for it.

"Why don't we have a look around?" Tifa suggested, trying to get attention away from their leader.

Vincent and Red shared a glance, "I see some carvings over there," Vincent pointed, "Let's have a look."

As the pair split off, Tifa turned back to her childhood friend. "Cloud? You ok?"

"Yeah, I'm fine," he said, still shaking off the dizzy spell. "It just reminded me of what we saw on Mt. Nibel before… Remember how Sephiroth called me out for not knowing about materia?"

"Yeah…" she said softly. How did he know these things? It was Zack who had been there. Zack that Sephiroth had scolded for not knowing. "At least there's no Mako reactor nearby to dry this one up."

"Yeah," he smiled. "Why don't we check out the stuff over there?"

She followed him to the opposite side of the room from the others. But caught the red eyed man looking at her. It seemed she wasn't the only one studying their comrades.

***

Ralena was petting down and spoiling her chocobo. She and Yuffie were on a little stretch of beach not far from the boat slips where Cid was working. She turned back to the bird, cooing at it. "I'm so sorry I had to leave you back there Iris, but look what I got for you." She opened a bag with some special blend of grasses poking out of it. The bird's beak dove into the bag with gusto.

Yuffie laughed watching the redhead baby her chocobo. She had never gotten to have any pets growing up. Her old man felt that taking care of an animal would take too much time away from training. "Can I pet her?" She had avoided the bird as it followed behind Avalanche on their travels. The Wutai girl was a little intimated, chocobos could be imposing just based on their size. Sure, she had fought monsters bigger than them, but she hadn't trusted monsters either. There was also the fact that this particular chocobo had sat on her before, and she hadn't wanted it's ire turned on her.

"Oh yeah," the woman replied, green eyes smiling, "She's real friendly."

"Really?" she said doubtfully.

"I promise I won't make her sit on you." She made a gesture and Iris sat down on the ground. "Here, why don't you give her some grasses?"

"Oh yeah, because getting my hand near it's beak sounds like a great idea."

"Don't worry," Ralena said, "I guarantee she won't bite, and if she does I have cure materia to fix it."

"That does not make me feel any better, you know…"

Less than half an hour later, Aerith came to join them, by then Yuffie was tentatively taking Iris on short sprints over the water. She'd ridden a chocobo of course, but never over water, she found it disconcerting, but cool.

It wasn't long after that that the Wutai girl was taking the bird for longer stretches down the beach. On her second trip back she dismounted, "The others are almost back," she said, pointing down the beach.

Noting the sudden look of anticipation on the empath's face, Aerith suggested that they go meet up with them. It was only a few minutes walking down the beach when Yuffie waved to the four returning members. Aerith noted the subtle change in the redhead's posture and her smile.

As the two groups converged there was a brief exchange of greetings. Aerith noted that Vincent didn't speak, and only gave a nod to Ralena after briefly making eye contact with herself and Yuffie. There may have been more forthcoming, but Iris stepped forward, as though blocking Cloud from getting too close to Ralena, and as a consequence blocked the other girls as well. The redhead laughed and just told Cloud to walk right passed her to assert his position. Cloud sighed and did so, earning a nudge to his side, but no further hassle as the lot of them headed back towards the town.

When asked about the shrine, Cloud reported that this lead was another bust, sighing heavily in frustration. They'd been chasing dead-end leads almost since they left Wutai and a lack of a clear goal was grating on him. Red XIII assured him that sometimes things just take a little time, especially when it comes to finding ancient things. Aerith gave similar encouragement, agreeing with the feline. Tifa reminded Cloud that it wasn't a total loss, as they managed to get a good amount of crab meat for dinner that night.

With the chocobo in tow, Ralena ended up in the back of the group beside Vincent. The two shared a few quiet exchanges about their day while ahead of them Aerith and Tifa shared mischievous smiles.


	10. The Calm Within The Storm

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Avalanche is about to leave when a storm comes rolling in. Not to waste the opportunity, Tifa suggests they have a little party.

The group ended up basing out of Costa del Sol for another few days. Partly to allow Cid some more time to work on the Tiny Bronco as parts for sea planes were readily available in the town. Barret and Cloud helped Cid with the Tiny Bronco, rigging some proper seating in it among other things. As it was, some of them had been strapping onto the wings for travel, and it was getting unbearable.

A few of the more cerebral members of the group agreed to spend some time in the library, looking into myths, legends and archeological finds. It was mostly Aerith, Vincent and Red XIII with Cait Sith popping in and out with some information he got. While it was a tourist destination, the city had a rich pre-ShinRa history. They hoped to find leads on something called a keystone. According to the rumors they were following, a man in a black cape had been looking for it. So logic dictated that if they found it, it would lead them to Sephiroth… or him back to them.

Ralena spent a little time in the library as well, but stuck to expanding her knowledge of regional monsters and their biology. Afterward, she, Tifa and Yuffie took up a small local bounty on a nearby monster nest for the extra cash.

After three days the group gathered by the docks getting ready to leave. Walking up to Cloud, Barret asked "Where's our next stop goin' ta be?"

"Nowhere," Cid said, settling on the wing of the plane behind the SOLDIER, wiping his hands on a grease rag.

"What's wrong?" Cloud asked.

"I just heard over the radio that we've got one helluva big storm coming in. The Bronco ain't fast enough to get us out of the path in time. We'll have to hunker down 'til it passes."

"Is it going to be bad?" Tifa asked, only now realizing that the lack of tourists on the street had less to do with it being a week-day.

"None of the locals seem worried," Ralena commented with a shrug.

"Yeah, ain't that bad if yer in a building. But you wouldn't wanna dance in it, or say... use a plane as a boat in it."

"Point taken," Cloud said.

"So we're staying here tonight?" Yuffie sighed, they had already checked out.

"Seems that way," Cloud said.

"Why don't we make the best of it?" Tifa asked.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Well, we won't be able to leave or go outside, let's take an honest break for the day. Have a lock-in."

"A what now?"

"It's an overnight party where no one leaves for the duration, everyone is locked-in." Aerith supplied. She knew better than to call it a slumber party with so many guys in the group.

"Isn't that what we would be doing anyway?" Cloud asked, confused.

"The point is to make it _fun,_" Tifa clarified. "We're not stuck in a storm, we're having a lock-in."

Cloud thought about it a second, then nodded. "Cid how many do we need to secure the Tiny Bronco?"

"Three or four of us should do."

"Alright, Myself, Cid, Vincent and Yuffie will secure the Bronco. Tifa, you and the others get us somewhere to stay and whatever you think we need for this party."

"I'll see if one of the villa's is available," she took a few steps before turning back, "I'm going to splurge a bit, we deserve it."

He nodded after her. Cloud had found that the former bar hostess was the best among them at taking care of their lodging, so he knew he could trust her with the details.

When they were nearly done with the plane, Cait Sith came hopping back down the road. "I'll take you guys to the villa, the others are getting supplies."

He lead them through the town where various shops were taking in their outdoor signs and displays. It seemed most of the tourists had vacated the streets already. Eventually, they walked down a cobbled walkway a block from the Inn proper. "Whoa."

"We're staying here?"

"It was the only one left, Tifa talked them down a fair bit too." Cloud didn't think that the hotel rented this, he had thought someone must have lived here the last time they passed through. It was a rather large two story house, larger than his house had been back in Nibelheim by far. As they approached Cloud was blind-sided by a mass of blue feathers as the chocobo came out of the small open garage and pushed him over into the grass. Yuffie almost died laughing at the surprised squawk that came out of the man's throat. Cloud just grumbled, picked up his bag and headed into the building, while Iris strutted back into the garage confidently.

Upon entering, Yuffie practically did a cannon-ball on the couch in the great room, tossing her duffle bag between her feet. "There's three bedrooms upstairs and two bathrooms, down here are two sleeper sofa's and a half bath," Cait said. "Tifa already claimed the master bedroom for the girl's to use tonight."

"All of them in one room?" Cloud asked confused.

"She found out Ralena had never been to a sleepover and took it upon herself to correct it."

"A slumber party?" Cid sneered, "Really? At their age?"

"A slumber party!?" came Yuffie's much more enthused voice, "Omigod I haven't had one of those in years!" She ran upstairs with her bag to drop her stuff in the designated room.

The pilot gestured back, "My point exactly."

"Ah, let 'em have their fun," Barret said walking in. The man was carrying a few bags and a small keg under one arm. Red XIII was behind him, a bag also held in his mouth. Vincent quickly moved over to relieve the cat of his parcel. "When they go up for that we can play cards."

"Oh yeah?" Cid replied, slightly more interested. "Got poker chips?"

"Of course!" the big man replied, almost insulted.

"Where are the rest of the girls?" Cloud asked, digging through the bags to see that it held some liquor and mixers. Apparently Tifa really planned on turning this into a party. There were also a few flashlights, probably in case the power went out.

"After they sent us back with this they went off ta get food, she told us to go back and meet them at the market to carry stuff back."

"How much food do we need?" Cloud asked confused. "It's only overnight."

The large man put the keg in the fridge, "It's gonna be at least 3 meals fer 9 people, Cloud. You ever cook that much?" While Barrett honestly hadn't, he had seen Tifa provide food and drink for Avalanche at many a meeting, and back then it had only been five of them.

The lot of them, save Cait Sith who said he had to go offline for a while, met up with the girls at the market. All were sent back laden with bags along with Aerith while Cloud was recruited to help Tifa get the take out. "All of this and take out too?" The SOLDIER was a little overwhelmed, when Tifa said she was going to splurge, he hadn't imagined all of this.

"Well I don't know about you, but I don't want to spend the whole time cooking."

"Fair..." he felt a slight mental twinge at the word, but shook it off quickly.

Tifa noticed it and gave him a concerned look. This was probably part of whatever was going on with his mental state. The thing she hadn't told anyone about. That he knew about Nibelheim like he had been there five years ago, even though she knew he hadn't been there. She didn't know what to do about it, other than sit back and watch him. She wondered what had really happened to him in the past seven years. Having seen what Hojo had been able to do to Vincent made her wonder...

"Why is it Wutai for lunch?" Cid complained when they got back, "You couldn't get pizza?"

"We can get pizza tomorrow after the storm," Tifa said, "Besides we can get that in almost any town."

"Didn't Cloud help you bring the food?" Aerith asked, noticing Tifa going back to the door for the remaining bags.

"Yeeahhh… Ralena you might want to handle that," Tifa said, "Iris bull-rushed him on the approach, apparently for the second time today, we almost lost some of the food."

Ralena sighed, and stood up from her comfortable position on the sofa. She should have expected this. Iris was being more stubborn than usual after her absence and clearly Cloud didn't know how to show a chocobo who was boss. Less than a second from her opening the door, her voice echoed back into the villa, "By Hades what are you two doing!?" Yuffie was the first one to jump up and bear witness, immediately laughing and then snapping a picture with the instant camera that had been purchased for the evening.

Cloud was sitting on the ground, where he had managed to get Iris into a headlock, the bulk of her body behind him. Part of his shirt was still in the chocobo's beak, exposing a portion of his stomach. "I've had it up to here with your damn bird!" Cloud growled. The chocobo gave a similarly displeased sound.

The empath could do nothing but put a hand over her face. "Well at this point you may as well wait until she submits," she sighed. "After that you probably won't have any… well not _this_ problem with her again."

"What is her problem anyway?" he asked, adjusting his grip as the bird tugged on his shirt and tried to peck at his leg. He honestly didn't want to harm the creature… too much.

"Really? You haven't figured it out?"

"What?" Iris' legs scratched at the ground behind him, trying to get enough leverage to stand.

She threw her hands up and then looked back to him, "It's your _hair,_ Cloud."

"My hair?"

"Haven't you seen her put her crest up? It's not too far off. She thinks it’s a dominance display."

"You're kidding," he said flatly, "I've never had problems with other chocobos."

She crossed her arms and smirked, "Well not all bird brains are created equal."

After another minute or so Iris finally went limp and gave up the fight. Ralena ushered the bird back into the garage and secured her for the storm, then she and Cloud joined the others to eat.

***

The first rain band came through during lunch. The group spread out between the dining room table and the sofas. The girls made a point of not clustering together, as they would have time to themselves later. Cloud and Yuffie were asking about Ralena's new blades. Barret and Vincent were talking firearms with a curious Tifa and Cait Sith listening in and debating on if they should start their own side conversation. Cid was telling Aerith and Nanaki about the airship he had helped build and the exhilarating experience of its first test run.

After that, Tifa had some help clearing the table and went about making the first round of drinks. It turned out the group was fairly simple in their drink orders. A few Rum and colas, straight bourbons for Vincent & Cid, Aerith started with a screwdriver, Barret tapped the keg and a curious Ralena joined him for that. Given the choice of beer or a cream liquor, Nanaki started with the former and quickly came back for the latter.

"Should we really let Yuffie drink?" Cloud said, as said girl grabbed herself a rum and cola.

"Are you saying I'm too young?"

"No," Cloud said, pausing to take a drink, "Knowing how you are sober, I'm worried how you'll be drunk."

Unable to think of an witty reply, the wutai girl let out an indignant huff and walked back to the sit in the living room.

"I could mix her something really strong that she'll hate," Tifa said quietly.

"Nah," he shook his head, still smirking, "she'd probably down it just to make a point…"

"Sorry I can't get you anything Cait," Tifa lamented to him a moment later when she sat across from him.

"Thanks for thinking of me," the robot smiled, "But I have something by the controls, so I don't feel left out."

"Oh?" Aerith said, "And how often are you Operating under the Influence?"

"I would never!" the toy replied in mock offense.

They all settled into the living room as outside the weather came in waves of intense action followed by lulls of light rain and even moments of sunshine. As they chatted the lulls grew shorter, but no one seemed to pay it any mind.

At one point, during a break in conversation, Aerith posed a question to the group. "I know, why don’t we have everyone name something they are bad at? Barret you want to start us off?"

As the first to go, Barret seemed unsure of how to answer. So he went with something obvious. "Controllin' my temper," he said plainly.

Red XIII, gave a similarly obvious answer, "Walking on two feet."

Yuffie smirked, "There's nothin' I'm bad at, I'm just too cool."

"Uh-huh," Cid said doubtfully.

Yuffie blushed, "Ok, so maybe I'm not great at cooking. What about you Cid?"

"Ain't it obvious? I'm bad at givin' compliments,"

Being the one who asked, Aerith had an answer picked out already, "Baking."

"Giving directions to somewhere," Cloud said from his spot next to her.

"Is that why you always insist on taking point?" Red XIII asked. Cloud put a hand behind his head and chuckled a little, then nodded in response.

"Shuffling Cards," Tifa said, from the blonde's other side. "I can never get that bridge thing right."

"My handwriting is atrocious," Cait Sith said, shaking his head, as if embarrassed.

"Can't be worse than mine," Barret smirked, lifting his gun arm.

By the time her turn came around, Ralena was ready, "I'm bad at remembering people's names." In her head, Cid had been 'the captain' up until the day before, not that she was going to tell him that.

"Relaxing" nearly every eye in the room turned to the dark clad man leaning against the wall outside the circle in which the other sat. Ralena just tried to hide her smirk.

"Speaking of relaxing," Aerith said, "Why don’t you take that cloak off? It's not like we're going anywhere soon."

***

After dinner, the ladies grabbed some snacks, bottles and mixers before moving upstairs. As they packed up, Cid opened up the cards and poker chips. "Could this be any more of a stereotype?" Cloud asked, pushing one of the ottomans over for Red XIII to sit on.

"What do you mean?" Nanaki asked, hopping on to the seat with a thankful nod.

"I mean, the group split by girls and boys, they're doing a slumber party and we're playing poker. It's like scenes from two different movies in the same house."

"Well at least this ain't no teen drama," Cid grinned, "Then we woulda ended up playing some dumb shit like Spin The Bottle."

Cloud's thoughts split into two directions simultaneously, drove around his head, and crashed into each other on the other side. Resulting in a mental image of a pair of lips on each side of his face. He quickly turned to fix himself another drink in order to hide the blush that came to his cheeks.

***

The girls had gotten to chatting pretty quickly, they weren't even done with their first round of drinks when Yuffie finally brought up something that had been bugging her for a while. "Ralena, what's the real reason your eyes glow sometimes?" she asked, "You told me it was Mako poisoning when we met, but I don't believe that."

"Well, I was trying to figure out how to tell all of you anyway…" she laughed, "I'm not sure the guys other than Nanaki and Vincent will get it."

"Does Vincent know?" Aerith asked.

She was in the midst of taking another drink, and started the answer through her glass, "Hmm? Oh yeah, otherwise he would have thought I was a madwoman when he met me… he might still think that anyway." The women laughed, after it died Ralena set down the glass, still half full. "So, the reason my eyes glow sometimes…" it sounded like a dramatic pause, but it was more because she knew it would kill the mood. "is because I was a subject of Hojo's for years."

Silence settled in. Aerith reached over and put a hand on hers.

"It wasn't until I was almost out of Hojo's possession that I even realized what it meant." She shuddered at the word, but she couldn't bring herself to use euphemisms like 'being in his care' to describe that time. "He knew my eyes changed color of course, but he didn't think there was a reason to it, that it just happened when I was scared. Someone who worked at ShinRa would sneak visits with me, he was the one who helped me realize that my eyes turn green when my empathic senses are activated."

"What are those?" Tifa asked.

"I can feel other people's feelings, but it’s hard for me to control sometimes. Especially in crowded places like Midgar."

"Is it like reading minds?"

Ralena shook her head, "No. I feel the feelings, almost like they're my own. It gets really confusing."

"Why don't you just keep it off?" Yuffie asked.

"Hmm?"

"Your 'empathic senses'," she said making quote marks in the air, "If they're so bad, why not just, I dunno, not use them?"

Ralena opened her mouth to speak, then stopped, taking a minute to think about how to explain it. She stood up and moved across the room from the other young woman so that she was near the wet bar. "Close your eyes and walk across the room to me."

Yuffie stood, noted the furniture between them and closed her eyes. She had made it around the first obstacle when a bright light flashed in her face. She recoiled and opened her eyes.

"You opened your eyes," Ralena said matter of factly, holding a flashlight and pointing it towards the ninja.

"Well yeah, you shined a light in my face."

"Strong emotions are the same way. I can't help but 'look'. It's almost a reflex. Other times it's like…" she stopped to think again, then they heard a collective groan come from the room downstairs. Likely someone making a clean sweep at a round of cards, she pointed to the floor, "it's like that. If you're busy, you might not notice, but if you're trying to sleep..."

"It sounds louder," Tifa supplied. The empath nodded back. "I remember when I first moved to Midgar," The former bartender continued, "I felt like everything about the city was choking me. Like it was pressing on me trying to absorb me into it. It was nothing like growing up in Nibelheim. And I'm normal... ish."

"Can you do anything else?" Yuffie asked.

"I've been meaning to practice projecting feelings more. Targeting a single person instead of just an area. But I really don't want to go messing with all of you."

"I have an idea that might help," the flower girl said, a wicked grin on her face, "Know any scary stories?"

***

"So," Cid said, dealing out a hand of cards, "If you were on a deserted island with another member of the group for a month, who would you pick?"

After a few seconds of no one else answering, Vincent spoke up "Ralena," he said plainly, "I've already spent about 3 weeks with her mostly alone. I don’t imagine another week wouldn't be difficult."

"If the island is big enough to hunt on," Nanaki started, "I would say Yuffie or Ralena, they both have good outdoor skills."

Cid turned a grin on his fellow blonde, "What about you Cloud?"

"Who would I.. Oh, hmm." Cloud made a show of considering his cards. "I hadn't thought about it before," he said, before taking a drink. He was very happy the girls weren't down here for this question.

Since it didn't look like their industrious leader wasn't about to answer, Barret took the reins. "I'm gonna say Cait Sith." Cloud breathed a sigh of relief that the attention was taken off of him.

"Really? I thought you didn't care for him that much," Red XIII said as he perused his cards held up in a makeshift stand.

"Yeah well, he's remote controlled, right? So whoever's behind the controls can send for help. And since he goes offline sometimes I can still have some time to myself."

"I like that answer," Cloud said quickly, "I'm saying Cait Sith too. What about you Cid?"

The captain was a little annoyed, he'd had a similar answer, but now felt he couldn't use it, or else he'd look like a hack. That and he had hoped to see Cloud sweat a little more. He thought a moment, looking at his cards, which weren't so hot this time around. "hmmm, for now I'm gonna say Tifa. She's the type that get things done."

***

It turned out that Aerith was the best at telling ghost stories. Growing up in the slums had exposed her to a host of urban legends. Yuffie had some creepy stories from Wutai, but her delivery was all off. Nibelheim had its own ghost story about ShinRa Manor, that had spent so long vacant, and while Tifa's storytelling was good, the fact that all of them had been in the building recently and knew it was just infested with monsters took some of the edge off. Ralena couldn’t think of any scary stories so she just suggested that Aerith tell another one. Before she started, Aerith told the empath she would signal when she wanted her to ramp up the mood.

***

The screams that came from upstairs had Vincent on his feet in an instant. He was already three steps away from the table when the sounds changed to laughter. The other men had also been startled, but hadn't been as quick on the reflexes.

"Fucking girls," Cid cursed shaking his head and downing a beer, "they're probably telling ghost stories or something…"

"I wouldn't think our friends would be so easy to frighten," Nanaki stated from his spot at the table.

Vincent had an idea about that, "It might depend on who is telling them," he said coming back to the table, "Ralena has a way of setting the mood." Vincent got several looks for the comment, each with their own take on it. He was about to sit back down when they heard scratching coming from the door to the garage. He folded for the hand and moved to calm Iris, who was also disturbed by the screams.

A few minutes later, Yuffie and Tifa came down with an empty ice bucket. "That got me more than I thought it would," Tifa laughed.

"No kidding, right?"

"Awww... are you girl's afraid of a widdle ghost story?" Cid mocked.

"Hey, a good storyteller can make all of the difference." Yuffie defended.

"It is kind of silly though," Cloud put in.

"Excuse me?" Tifa replied, a hand moving to her hip. Barret knew that posture as a sure sign that she hadn't taken the comment well.

"We're fighting monsters every day, how can you be afraid of ghosts?" the blonde asked honestly.

"Well for starters," the barwoman replied, bringing up a fist, "I can punch a monster, you can't punch a ghost." ... probably, she thought at the end.

"Just keep it down, will ya? I'm going to try and get my chips back and I can't do it with all of that racket you're making up there. Why don't you braid each other's hair and eat ice cream or something more quiet?"

There was a moment where Barret and Cloud were sure that Cid would get a fist in the face, instead Tifa just breezed on by and casually asked, "So who's winning?"

"So far it's pretty close between Red and Vincent," Cloud answered.

"Really?"

"It took me a while to get the rules down," with a paw the feline moved two cards face down from where they were propped up in front of him, "Two, please." Cloud, who was dealing, put the two new cards in their slots, trying to be careful not to let anyone else get a peek.

"Well he was playing safe, and wouldn't 'a been a threat, until someone told 'im how bluffin' works." Barret muttered, glaring at Vincent.

Vincent put one card down and retrieved its replacement. "He saw the successful results of my tactics and mimicked them, like any good warrior."

Tifa smirked, "Are you just sore because you're bad at bluffing, Barret?"

"No I ain't!"

"Uh-huh..." with the ice bucket filled from the freezer, and Yuffie having retrieved the blender the two girls headed back upstairs. "I'll be making some frozen drinks Cid, I hope the noise from the blender doesn't upset your delicate concentration."

"Just keep it down" the pilot yelled as the other men tried not to laugh too hard at the burn. Then he muttered, "I'm votin' you offa my island."

***

"Cid can be such as asshole," Yuffie muttered as she and Tifa came back into the room.

"Why? What happened?"

"He made fun of us for screaming at ghost stories."

"Never mind that Cloud actually thought it was silly too."

"Did you tell him about my part in it?" Ralena asked, "That would probably have made him back down."

"I might have, but then Cid told us we should just 'braid our hair and eat ice cream.'"

"Oh really..." the cold response from both Aerith and Ralena stopped Tifa for a moment as she was loading the ice into the blender.

"Should we try it?" Aerith asked, turning to the redhead.

"What? Now?" Ralena said back to her.

"Yeah, it'll teach those boys a lesson."

"We can't possibly have everything we need." The empath replied.

"I'm sure we can figure something out between the four of us."

"What are you two talking about?" Yuffie interrupted.

Again Aerith grinned, "While you were downstairs, we were talking about how Ralena could work at a haunted house…"

****

"_-Psst- hey Cait._"

"_The door's closed Yuffie, you don’t have to whisper._"

Reeve cursed his commitment to corporate excellence as the sounds came out of the small control terminal in his room. He glanced at his clock, the rest of Avalanche was a good three hours behind him right now, and it was getting late where they were.

Sitting up and rubbing his eyes he pushed the button to turn on the microphone. "What is it Yuffie?"

"You can record right? I mean, video and stuff?"

He blinked at the bright light coming from his screen and enlarged the video feed to take up most of the screen. "Yes... why?"

She grinned hugely, "We're gonna play a prank on the guys, it would be cool to capture it."

Really, _REALLY?_ This is what they woke him up for? He looked behind the teen, where Tifa and Aerith were putting make up on Ralena while also arranging a robe on her. All of the girls were wearing pajama pants. "I told you not to bother him," Aerith chided, "He was probably sleeping."

"I don’t think this is going to work..." Reeve said, even though he had no idea what they were planning.

"Oh yeah it will," Yuffie said, still grinning like a mad pixie. "Apparently Ralena can make people feel emotions, so we're gonna scare the pants offa them."

That got his attention. "She can do what?"

"We'll explain later," Tifa said, "We'll have to explain it to the guys afterward anyway."

Oh, why the hell not? Maybe he could get a good laugh out of it. "Sure." All he had to do was be the camera man anyway...

***

Cloud had noticed that one of the girls had come down and plucked up Cait Sith. He wondered if the cat would be covered in make-up and bows in the morning. He shook his head. They weren't _that_ girly and childish. It didn't matter what Cid thought. Maybe they grabbed him for more fortune telling, that was something women were into, right?

A few hands later, there was a flash of light and thunder and the lights went out. Fortunately, thanks to Red XIII's tail they were not plunged into absolute darkness. Though the dark did make Vincent's and Cloud's faintly glowing eyes more obvious.

Cid, sighed and stood from his chair. "Guess I'll go find the circuit breaker."

"I'll dig out a flashlight," Cloud said, making a move towards one of the kitchen drawers, where they had stashed a few. Meanwhile, Vincent got up and moved across the living room to look out the back window. If he remembered right, the power lines came in from that direction, perhaps he could see if they were down.

Seeing as everything seemed to be taken of, Barret stayed at the table next to Nanaki and drank his beer. There was a subtle sound, the feline's ears swiveled. "Didja hear…" Barret started, a confused look on his face.

"_Where..._" the whisper came more clearly. Vincent turned, sure he had seen something out of the corner of his eye across the room. One of the few good things about the experiments done to him was his impeccable night vision. "… _Are you?_" Another whisper, this time he was not the only one who heard it and it was in the opposite direction.

Barret jumped up from his seat. "Did you see that?"

"See what?" Cid barked, an odd sliver of fear in his voice. "No offense Red, but with your tail swishing around it's making the shadows move so it's hard to make out what I'm seein'."

"I will endeavor to move it less, for the sake of your delicate concentration," the feline said calmly, and the shadow's sway lessened.

"Ha. Fucking. Ha." The pilot replied flatly.

There was another flash of lightning, and a Barret pointed, "There was someone in the corner over there."

Skeptically, Cloud, who had now retrieved the flashlight, pointed it in the empty corner. For some strange reason, he felt a growing dread in the pit of his stomach. While they were still looking at the corner, something appear next to Barret. Noticing it, Cloud, swung the flashlight around, but it was gone.

"Hey, get that light outta my face!"

"Sorry," apprehension filled the blonde, it seemed like it was the size of a human, but it had just disappeared…

_"Where are…_"

Like the others at this point, Vincent was wary, keeping an eye out for the source of the voice. "_You… my darling?_" His eyes shifted quickly and he spotted the white dressed figure by the lamp. This time it lingered longer. Barret was pointing in its direction and Cloud nearly dropped the flashlight before bringing it to bare on the figure. A moment after the light struck it, it disappeared again. It seemed unaffected by the light, as if the darkness clung to it.

"What the fuck was that?" Cid asked, trying not to sound panicked.

"It looked like a woman in white…" Cloud sounded unsure, like he didn't believe what he had seen.

"That is what I saw too," Nanaki said, for some reason the cat did not seem too disturbed. Still nervous, Cloud managed to relax a little at the fact that others had seen it too.

"_Darling~_" This time it was a slow and drawn out, an almost a singing call.

_Dressed in white…_, Vincent thought. He felt slightly on edge, but there was something about the set up that didn't seem right to him. A few details that his superior night vision caught, but that his mind hadn't processed yet.

"Where a_re you… my da~rling?_" the figure appeared next to him, with her head tilted down, he stepped back. She seemed to emit a slight glow all her own, as though she were lit by a candle whose light could not touch him. Black streaks of makeup went down her cheeks, ending just above the oddly familiar curve of her lips. He didn't move as the face angled up so that the thick veil no longer covered her eyes.

Her glowing Mako green eyes.

He could tell she didn't really see him, but did a good job of almost meeting his eyes "Lights on," he muttered humorously to himself, the image smirked and disappeared taking with it the unnatural fear that he hadn't realized had been pressing on him. This should be amusing…

"What the fuck do you think I'm trying to do?" Cid said, still trying to find the electrical panel in the dark. He cursed himself for not noting its location before now. The others heard some stuff in the pantry getting pushed aside as he tried to look in the back of it.

The spirit came up to Cloud, as it leaned in close, he tried to push her off, but his hand went straight through. Shocked, the former SOLDIER backed himself into the refrigerator. She leaned in close examining him, "_Hmmm… not you… pity_"

"What the…" Cid, who had come out of the pantry without finding his goal, saw the figure full on for the first time.

It flickered away from Cloud and appeared facing the pilot, standing behind Barret. "_Is that you? My husssband?_" It flickered again, now between Cid and the poker table. It's voice had become a hiss. "_Wheeere did you go~?_"

Another flash of lightning and it was standing in front of him. Like Cloud, Cid tried to push it away, and ended up moving through it. It rotated and followed him.

"_Death cannot part us._" She made a choking sound, her voice dropped dangerously, "_No matter how hard you try_." Red liquid, seemed to pour from the vision's throat, staining her white dress. As she leaned in closer to Cid. "_Toogetherr fooreeveerrr._" The pilot cowered. It flickered rapidly.

Bright light filled the room once. Twice.

There was the whirr of a small motor, and a chorus of female laughter as the lights came on.

Cid opened his eyes, and turned towards the stairs where Yuffie stood with a camera, waving a developing polaroid. "So ghost stories aren't scary, Cid?"

"What the fuck!?" Cid was shaking and turning a little red.

"Did you get all of that Cait Sith?" Tifa asked from the doorway next to the stairs where she had flipped the breaker back on.

"As much as I could without moving!" the cat grinned.

Tifa waved a small purple orb, and the other girls came down the stairs, Aerith with a mostly empty bottle of grenadine and Ralena in a white robe, with said syrup dripping down her neck and chest. As the redhead came down the stairs, Tifa projected a duplicate of her on and off a few times. In the bright light, no one would've fallen for it.

"th.. That wasn't funny!"

"I beg to differ," said the sweet voice of the flower girl.

"You too Aerith?" Cloud asked shocked.

"You kidding?" Tifa smiled, "It was her idea! Maybe next time you won't be such an ass."

A few looks of disbelief went the pink clad woman, "What?" she replied in faux innocence, "It was a training exercise." Some looks changed to confusion and she looked at Ralena, "Do you want to explain?"

"Oh, sure, just let me clean up a bit first…," Ralena said, gesturing to the stained white robe that Aerith had lent her, "This grenadine is going to be a bitch to clean up… so worth it though."

"I tried to keep most of it on the robe…" the flower girl lamented, as Cid mumbled curses in the background. When Ralena came back out of the laundry room Vincent noticed that she wasn't hiding her tattoo, wearing her now usual tank top and pajama pants. He wondered if she had done it intentionally, or if she just forgot with everything else going on.

The group mostly settled in the living room and started by explaining what Ralena had told them about her abilities, and how they had used it on themselves first before turning it on Cid and the men downstairs for making fun of them. Yuffie had snuck down to trip the circuit breaker, while Aerith cast a lightning spell outside to sell the outage. Tifa utilized a non-combat "projection" materia that Yuffie had collected a while back. It's range wasn't great, and it took too much concentration to use in combat, but she kept hold of it just because. Ralena had been down the hall, dressed in a white robe, a sheet for a veil and runny eye make-up. She couldn't see what was happening, but Aerith whispered who the ghost was next to, based on hand signals from Tifa and Yuffie.

"Damn," Barret was stunned, "Do you want to plan our next mission?"

The girls laughed.

"You didn't seem nervous at all Nanaki, why not?" Vincent asked.

"Spirits have a sense to them that it lacked. Also, I am not human, so why would it be after me?"

"You knew it wasn't real and you didn' say nothin'!?" Barret exclaimed.

"I thought you were just having fun."

As Yuffie and Tifa began talking more about the materia they had used, Vincent caught the redhead's attention. "You missed a spot," he said, pointing. She looked down and caught sight of a bit of red syrup near the neckline of her tank top.

"Oh, thanks." Without thinking about it much, she wiped the drop off with a fingertip and stuck it in her mouth. The fact that Vincent's gaze lingered, went unnoticed by himself and Ralena, but not everyone.

***

"So… " Tifa asked later as they were finally settling down to sleep. "What about you and Vincent?"

Yuffie and Aerith perked up, Ralena hadn't been paying attention. "hmm? What about him?"

"What about _you_ and him," the former bar owner asked pointedly.

She sighed, she expected this line of questioning to pop up eventually, but that was the price of finally having female friends. "Nothing really…"

"Are you sure?" the brawler asked.

"You mean to tell me you guys travelled all the way from Midgar to here _alone_ and _nothing happened_?" Yuffie piped in.

She shrugged, "First night out of the city we huddled together for warmth, but it was in a cave and I was so exhausted after two days it's not like… I…" her eyes slowly grew wide and a blush flooded her face.

"Yeah…?" Yuffie prompted.

"Oh no…" Ralena brought a pillow up to her chest and buried her face in it. "I forgot!" she moaned, "I wish I could forget!"

"What happened?" Aerith asked, more gently. She was dying to know, but Yuffie's blunt approach wasn't going to work for this.

"When we first got out of the pipes into the slums, we were taking a break in a back alley. I.. I was so tired, I couldn't shut out all of the people and," her voice lowered and embarrassment was thick in her voice. "…And we were in a red light district."

"Oh." Tifa and Aerith almost immediately responded.

The less experienced ninja didn't get the chance to ask what that mean, as the empath bemoaned her past actions. "I practically attacked him! Like a drunken tramp! If he hadn't been so together I probably would've stripped in the alley!"

The two older women shared a glance and sat on either side of her. "I wouldn't worry about it," Aerith comforted, "He knew how your abilities work right? So he understands. Have you two talked about it?"

She shook her head, "It hasn't come up. We were so busy trying to get out of town and not get caught. It would be too embarrassing to bring it up, and he's probably forgotten by now."

"I wouldn't be so sure," Tifa said with a knowing tone. The empath gave her a look, almost pleading for the whole event to have never happened. "I bet part of him remembers. I'm not sure _he_ noticed, but I think he watched how you licked that syrup off of your finger earlier."

The blush came back full force and again her head went into the pillow. "Now he probably thinks I'm flirting!"

"I doubt that," Tifa said, a tone of disappointment in her voice.

"Wait…" Yuffie said getting back into the conversation, "I thought you were into him."

"What? I don... Why would I…" she stopped. "We're… friends," she said lamely.

Tifa recognized that look, oohhh boy. The girl _just_ realized she might have feelings for him that went beyond friendship. "Well like you said, he's always so cool and calm. I bet he never triggers your empathy. He doesn't seem like the type for sudden mood changes."

She thought about it and nodded, even if it wasn't 100% true.

"And when he gets his face out from behind that collar, he is quite handsome." Aerith supplied.

Not picking up on where this going at all, Yuffie chimed in, "But he can be kinda creepy, with those red eyes and his claw…. Is that thing stuck on there?"

"Yuffie!" Aerith chided.

"What?"

"Those things don't bother me," Ralena said, still clutching the pillow, "It's just part of him." Again, the two senior members of Avalanche shared a look. Oh yeah, she had it bad.

***

A similar conversation was being attempted downstairs, with significantly less success. "So, anything interesting happen between the two of you on your trip?" Cid asked with a leering grin.

"It was hardly a vacation," Vincent replied blandly. He had agreed to sleep downstairs, since he felt he needed the least sleep. Though he was beginning to wonder how long the other men would take to vacate the space. Nanaki had already curled up on one of the sofas and was fast asleep, and Cait Sith had also returned to his offline mode.

"Sooo?" he asked, indicating he wished to hear more.

Red eyes turned to the pilot, "Nothing you would care to hear." As far as the former Turk was concerned, that was true. "Though she did do well during the motorcycle chase despite never having ridden before."

"Really? How did yours go?" Cloud asked, suddenly interested in the topic. From there the men discussed their escapes from Midgar, with Cid the only one in the conversation who hadn't been involved in one.

***

The next morning, Yuffie went out to the back patio of the villa and was horrified by the sight that greeted her, "_What_ are you _doing_?"

Cloud, Tifa and Ralena were lined up on the ground doing pushups. Cloud looked up at her, "uhhh… exercising," he said, hardly slowing down.

"I mean," she gestured lamely with her hands, "Why!?"

"You can't make it to SOLDIER without putting a lot of work in," he said.

Aerith waved at Yuffie from where she sat at the patio table with a glass of orange juice. "Cloud was doing some exercises when the other two came down and decided to join him," she explained. Then she lowered her voice so that only the teen could hear. "You missed Cloud doing squats... that was a nice view."

They shared a giggle and watched the rest of the spectacle of early morning exercises with a mixture of amusement and disgust.

After they were done with the basics Ralena turned to the blonde. "Hey Cloud, can I try the hold Vincent taught me on you?"

He looked a little confused, "Why not with Tifa?"

"Are you kidding? She'll have me pinned in two seconds. I figure with both of us using swords, we're pretty even on the bare handed front."

Cloud wasn't sure how he felt about this, but it was training, so why not? "Sure," he said. They moved off of the patio to a nearby patch of grass and Tifa moved to watch.

The bartender was almost embarrassed watching them. The two sword fighters were clearly not that adept at bare handed fighting beyond punching and dodging. She could see what the redhead was trying to do, but the blonde was too quick for her to get a proper handle on. Then again when he tried it back it was just as useless. "How can you two be so bad at this?" she said after almost five minutes.

They both stopped mid movement and looked at her. Ralena had one hand on his arm, but he had gotten a foot behind her leg and was beginning to push back. At least they had good balance, most other people would've fallen over already. She could tell it clearly wasn't working out. "I can't be that bad," the redhead said, "I managed to pin Vincent… once."

"After how many times?" Tifa asked raising a brow.

Ralena blushed, "I lost count around 20." She and Cloud released each other.

"I hate to tell you, but either he got tired or you got really lucky." The brunette didn't dare imply that Vincent had _let her_ pin him.

"Let's be honest," Cloud said, "It's not like our fighting styles really allow for submissions."

Tifa moved toward the two. "Let's go over what you are doing wrong." First she showed Cloud what the redhead was attempting to do on the woman herself. Then she did it to Cloud walking them through each step and what had to be done.

"Oh," Ralena said, "It makes so much more sense seeing it from the outside."

Feeling this was something she could beat the other two at, Yuffie jumped in to join the practice. The Wutai girl had to take hand-to-hand training at home before she had been allowed to take up a weapon. Throws and take downs were more part of her style than submissions, but she still felt she had an edge over the other two.

Under Tifa’s instruction the three practiced, but with an overenthusiastic Yuffie added into the mix it quickly devolved into a free for all, during which Red XIII charged into the fray out of nowhere and tripped all of three of them. They ended up in a tangled pile on the lawn with the feline sitting triumphantly atop them. Aerith nearly died laughing.

Tifa put her head in her hands. What was she going to do with these people?

****

"Good News Everyone!" Cait Sith said as he came up to the table near the end of breakfast, "I think I have a solid lead."

"Let's hear it," Cloud said, putting a final piece of bacon in his mouth.

"I was looking through some recent news articles and found out about some guy who sold an artifact he found in a ruin for a bunch of cash."

"If he sold it, what good is that?" Yuffie asked.

"We can still ask him what it was and who he sold it too," Tifa explained. "Still not sure how _solid_ a lead that is though…"

"Where is this guy?" Cloud asked.

"Gongaga." The robot replied.

There were a few moments of consideration. "Their Mako reactor blew up a few years ago," Barret said, "ShinRa pretty much abandoned it, so I doubt we'd have to worry about being spotted."

"One of the Ruins we were looking into is near there," Red XIII noted, "We can check that out at the same time."

"Any objections?" Cloud offered. With no word given against it, he smiled. After over a week of false leads and research, a viable target at last. "Alright then, finish eating and pack up, looks like we are headed to Gongaga."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I wanted more bonding for all of the characters, so I figured this was a good opportunity. Go figure, I decided on a "hurricane party" while waiting to see if Hurricane Dorian was gonna hit us.  
Also, I know that Vincent looks like a vampire, but for some reason I just don't see him as a red wine guy.


	11. Dark Suits in Gongaga

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Hoping to find a clue on the location of the Keystone, Avalanche travels to Gongaga where they run into some old acquaintances

They were packing up the plane, getting ready to set out to Gongaga when Ralena waved Vincent over, “I almost forgot, I got something for you,” she said, handing him a small, plain white box.

Curious, he took it from her. Lifting the lid, he picked the black and red device out of the box.

“I thought you could use a phone of your own. I already put everyone’s number in it.”

"Thank you," he said honestly, if somewhat coolly. It seemed it wasn't uncommon for the group to split up in towns, so this should be useful. He turned it around in his hand and flipped it open. "How do I use it?"

She tried not to laugh, it was easy to forget that he was, literally, from over two decades ago. "Here, I'll show you the basic stuff." While she did, she leaned over and said quietly, "I only gave your number to Cloud so far."

He smirked and gave her a nod of thanks.

****

They arrived outside Gongaga by mid-morning two days later. After they secured and hid the Tiny Bronco, Cloud split them into two groups, himself, Aerith, Tifa, Vincent and Cait Sith were to go into town and ask around. The others were set to trek into the jungle to check out the nearby ruins for clues. It didn't escape a few people's notice that Cloud sent the more combat-happy members of the group into the wilderness.

As the party headed for town approached a fork in the path, Vincent quietly signaled for the others to stop. "I hear someone up ahead."

Cloud didn't see what all the fuss was about, they were headed into a town, anyone could be on the path. Regardless, they slowed and moved up more quietly.

"What are you getting so embarrassed about?" a voice said, "If ya had to pick one who would it be?" Cloud pulled up short, he recognized that voice. The response was too quiet to understand and the first speaker continued. "That's a tough one, partner. I feel kinda bad for Elena though, isn't she into you?"

"No, she likes Tseng. You're interested in the new one aren't you?"

"I wouldn't say that," the first voice said, some sort of aversion in his tone, "Haven't even laid eyes on them yet. But neither of them are bad looking from the files, y'know." They heard a scoff in response.

Vincent's eyes narrowed and he turned to the path behind them, hearing someone else approaching. A second later, coming up the trail, was a petite blonde in a Turk suit. She was feathering her suit jacket, not initially looking ahead of her, too busy trying to cool herself in the tropical heat.

"What are they talking about?" Cloud muttered ahead of Vincent. If he hadn't spoken up, there was the possibility that the overheated Turk would've walked right into them. It was so amateurish that it was almost comedic to the dark clad man.

"Ugh, it's so dumb," she said stopping only just then to look up, "You'd think they'd have something better to talk about than who they like. Tseng is so much more matu-" Recognition suddenly lit her expression. Vincent debated pinning her, but from what he had heard about this current incarnation of the Turks, there was the possibility of getting out of this without conflict. "They're here!" she shouted, running past the group to the fork, "They're really here!" He sighed… maybe not.

Cloud and the others stepped up behind her to see Reno and Rude standing on the path that led off toward the reactor. He just caught the end of an eyeroll from Reno, who looked at Rude. "hnn, seems like its time. Don't go easy on them, even the girls."

A slight smirk tugged at the corner of Rude's mouth, Reno knew he didn't need the reminder. "Don't worry… I'll do my job."

"We're counting on you. I'll report to Tseng!" Most watched the woman run off, Vincent quickly decided sniping her would probably get him in unnecessary trouble with _his own_ group and wasn't worth it. Besides, the girl was so blatantly green it would probably be to their benefit to let her live.

The redheaded Turk was eyeing the group when they looked back to him. "-Tch-, only half of you?" Reno lamented, "I wanted to scrap with _both_ of the new ones…"

"I don't suppose you’re on vacation again?" Aerith asked hopefully.

"Sorry," Rude said, adjusting his gloves.

"Valentine, you were a Turk once," the redhead said with a grin, "Why don't you join back up?"

"If my first assignment was to put a bullet in Hojo's head today, I would consider it."

"What!?" Cloud said in surprise, Reno just barked out a laugh.

Crimson eyes shifted to the blonde, but otherwise he didn't move. "Did you forget why I am here? Our goals align, but our quarry is not the same as yours." He sounded harsher than necessary. He imagined he would have to clear things up with Cloud privately later, especially since he said 'our' instead of 'my'.

"Sadly, the boss needs him," Reno replied with a dramatic shrug. "But I'll run your request up the chain of command."

"I won't hold my breath."

"Anyway," the redhead said, turning back to Cloud, "It's payback time for what you did in Sector 7."

Cloud gritted his teeth, "What _we_ did? Believing your own propaganda? You were the one that pushed the button!"

Reno's eyes narrowed, his normal jovial attitude fading for a moment. There wasn't enough booze in the world to make him forget that fact. "And who do you think forced our hand?" If these damn amateurs had even _thought_ about the kind of men in charge of their enemies, Heidegger and Old Man Shinra, they would have known an act like that was well within the realm of possibility.

"Hiding behind your orders?" Cloud sneered.

"-Tch- I don’t need to take this shit from a toy SOLDIER," Reno said, drawing his Mag-rod. It sparked and he grinned, the fight would help clear his mind, "Let's dance." The redhead was on Cloud before he could draw his sword, the swordsman dipped sideways to avoid the blow, pivoting and pulling up to a guard position in front of Aerith.

Rude had moved nearly as quickly as Reno had, but Tifa was ready, blocking the first blow and returned an elbow that grazed the man's face. The bald man twisted around and tried to move towards Cait Sith, but she managed to push him back by forcing him to dodge a kick.

The two Turks fought as a coordinated unit, making them more trouble than a two on five match should be. That was as much because Avalanche and "coordinated" didn't really go together either. No wonder the Turks sent the blonde away, she only would have ruined their rhythm. Without signals that Avalanche could see, the Turks would swap or change targets, or even focus on the same target for a single, and successful, hit. They would force Cloud or Tifa to move to defend Aerith, or draw the melee away before rushing past to the front line. Vincent's mobility was enough that he didn't need to be defended, he even ended up body checking Rude at one point to get him off of Cait Sith. But that had earned him a solid hit to the ribs.

At one point, Reno managed to imprison Aerith and then Cait Sith in pyramid shaped forcefields, forcing Vincent to take time and ammo to break them out, especially since Aerith couldn't heal through it. This allowed the Turks to go in hard and fast on Tifa and Cloud. After freeing Aerith, the gunman used Cait Sith's prison as cover to reload, only to see the redhead rush Cloud, vault off of the Buster Sword that had been raised to block him, and land beside him. Reflexively he lifted his gauntlet to block. He knew his mistake the instant it happened, even before he registered the grin on the Turk's face. Electricity coursed into the claw and down his arm. As he tried to fight off the spasms he was struck with several more electrified strikes in rapid succession before Tifa ran up and forced the Turk back.

The black skin under his gauntlet was crawling, a growl rumbled in his chest. _Not now,_ he gritted his teeth, forcing himself to stand up straight, _I can't let this enemy see you_. He couldn’t let the Turks know about his transformations, assuming they didn't already, it was something that was too easy to exploit. There was also a large difference between knowing what happened and fighting against his altered forms. His teeth started to extend as he fought down the savage urges and gathered magic for a _Fire_ spell, focusing everything into the effort.

He loosed it and struck Rude on his right side. The pair pulled back and everyone took up guard positions. Vincent was grateful for the reprieve. Rude patted out a few lingering flames on his sleeve then held his watch up to Reno. "Time?" Vincent could see it for the theatre that it was, these two didn't need words or overt gestures for such a simple exchange.

"Yeah, I think we're good," Reno smirked. "I'm calling this a victory for us." With that the two retreated down the same path that the blonde woman had run down a few minutes before. Vincent was inclined to agree, even though the Turks were in the same shape as them, given the numbers, their team should have taken them down easily. If they got the chance they should work on team tactics, and Vincent wasn't sure anyone in their group was good at that.

"That's right, you better run!" Cait Sith shouted, his voice echoing slightly from within the energy prison. Vincent took several deep breaths as Cloud went over to break the robot out of the field. He'd have to ask to find some monsters in order to let the beast out. Going into town with one of The Others so close to the surface would be reckless.

"Is it just me, or did seem like they knew we were coming?" Tifa asked, while Aerith saw to healing their wounds. Vincent exhaled slowly, the soothing nature of the healing magic making it easier to keep the Galian Beast at bay.

"You don't think there's a spy, do you Cloud?" the cat let out a mewling cry, "Everyone will think I did it, since I suggested coming here…"

"No Cait," Aerith said, patting the cat on the head, "That's silly."

Cloud shook his head, "I don't even want to think about there being a spy." The blonde barely gave it a few seconds thought, "I trust everyone."

Vincent frowned behind his collar, Cloud was making this too easy for the ShinRa.

***

"And which way did they go?" Tseng asked, his phone was patched through his headset, otherwise it would have been nearly impossible to hear. "Very good, keep eyes on them and don't be seen, I want to know what they are doing."

"Everything alright, Tseng?" Scarlet asked, looking across the rear of the helicopter at him.

Turning his phone off, he reached up and adjusted the volume on his headphones, he'd want it lower while talking to her... "Avalanche came upon Reno and Rude, there was an altercation."

"Oh," the blonde woman asked, arching a perfectly plucked brow. "Did we get them?"

Tseng shook his head, "Our current assignment regarding them is surveillance. They only engaged out of boredom." That wasn't entirely true, but Scarlet didn't need to know that Reno and Rude had gotten bored _and distracted_, allowing Avalanche to stumble on them. Fortunately, the group was full of a bunch of bruisers, ready to fight at the drop of a hat. Conflict made for a quick distraction and prevented them from picking up any clues. The only exception would be Valentine, the former Turk and his old boss's long ago partner.

"Hmph, my how low the Turks have come since Veld left." She replied with a mocking tone and vicious curve to her red lips.

He didn't take the bait, after the whole debacle with the previous incarnation of Avalanche, Scarlet was the one who had called for the execution of what was left of the Turks at the time; Reno, Rude and himself. "We're short on manpower," he said plainly, "We don't have enough people to infiltrate it ourselves. We've had to… outsource the job."

"Oh? Who did you get?"

"I'm not at liberty to say." Tseng replied.

"Really?" She gave him a smug smirk and looked out the window, signaling the end of this line of discussion. Thank the gods for that, he preferred it that Scarlet thought they were less competent then they were.

At least it seemed their mole was actually doing his job. The reports the last few weeks had seemed… half-assed was probably the best descriptor. Though he was unsure how much that had to do with all of the work Reeve had, or if he was just getting lazy.

***

The group stood in a ring in the jungle small clearing, backs to each other as the noises from the jungle around them came closer. "One large creature, several smaller ones," Red XIII said with a growl.

A moment later a large lizard burst from the jungle. Barret immediately fired into it. Its thick scales deflected some of the shots, and it dodged others, charging in low. The group scattered, and a number of basketball sized frogs came hopping out of the trees. 

"Dammit," Ralena said, taking a swipe at one of the amphibians, "Touch Me's..." Iris came up from her side and slammed her massive talons down on it, her owner grinned. The chocobo loved frogs.

"You want me to what now?" Cid called in shock, taking a stab at the large lizard.

"No!" Yuffie called, striking out at another of the smaller targets, "The frog, you perv! It's called a 'Touch Me.'"

Barret's laughter punctuated the end of a volley of bullets, "That sounds like Yuffie named them."

"Only an old man like you or Cid would name it that!" the ninja retorted.

"Don't involve me in this," the captain objected, trying to keep the attention of the lizard. "And I'm not _that_ old!"

"Just be careful," Ralena said, hoping to bring the conversation back around to something more relevant, "They will _Frog_ you. The lizard can paralyze, too"

"Does the lizard have a dumb name too?" Cid asked, blocking a bite that came in with the shaft of his spear.

"I can't remember how to pronounce it." The fencer pulled back from another strike and Nanaki rushed in from the side, finishing off one of the Touch Me's.

A strange tune filled the air, and they found themselves short one member and accompanied by a frog with a tiny gun strapped onto one of its fore legs. "Shit," Cid cursed, "Barret has the _Heal_, doesn't he?"

*****

Since it looked like the Turks has been guarding the path towards the ruined Mako Reactor, Cloud decided they should go check it out. Fortunately for Vincent's now short fuse, some poor monsters attacked and offered themselves up as a sacrifice for the Galian Beast before they got there.

The remains of the reactor were clearly the result of an explosion, all of the metal was pushed outward from the center. It was like some sort of twisted, giant metal flower. When they approached the center, where the reactor core used to be, they startled a flock of birds. As they flew off into the sky, a few white feathers drifted down.

For several seconds, Cloud went stock still. The others seemed to be too busy looking up at the birds, but Vincent noticed, his marksman training didn't allow one to be distracted by birds. Cloud shook it off when Aerith mentioned hearing something odd approaching.

"A helicopter," Cloud said in recognition. "It has to be ShinRa. Get under cover." The helicopter flew over and landed in the barren area surrounding the reactor. "Stay hidden," Cloud ordered, "Let's see what they are here for."

***

Tseng followed behind Scarlet as she walked through the ruins. He felt like a child reluctantly following his mother on a clothes shopping trip. He wondered if this assignment was a subtle punishment for not putting forth any effort when the two Avalanche members escaped Midgar.

She was blissfully without much to say as her heels made an interesting sound, walking over dirt coated metal. He added it to his mental catalog of noises while she made a face at the state of the former facility. It hadn't been a large one, and they got to where the core had been in little time.

Scarlet stepped up, clearly taking the time to stand in such a way as to try and be appealing. Even though she had no interest in bedding the Turk, the woman always tried to be desirable. _Too bad she didn't started with her personality,_ Tseng mused.

"-hmph- This isn't any good. I should have expected as much from a failed reactor. You only get junk Materia from junk reactors. What I'm looking for is big, no, _huge_ materia." Tseng resisted the urge to sigh, of course she was looking for huge balls, she needed them to go with her giant metaphorical di- "Have you seen any?"

"No, I haven't," he replied without a hint of hesitation, "I'll get on it right away."

"Please do," she purred, "We could make the ultimate weapon if we only had some."

"I just can't wait," he said and mentally finished with, _to see what kind of over-the-top, unwieldy, single use, single purpose, scorched earth, bullshit you come up with this time._

She smiled looking off into space as though imagining a lover, "With Hojo gone, We've got a bigger budget in Weapons Development."

Now she was trying to brag. The Turk would stroke her ego a bit, only because he'd have to fly back with her and it made her more tolerable, "I envy them."

"Even if I did make the perfect weapon, could that idiot Heidegger even use it?" She asked slyly.

This time Tseng didn't answer. G_iven the overly destructive nature of everything you build, which results in limited applications he… would find an excuse to blow up something with it, _he thought.

"Oh sorry," she said in mock apology when she received no response, "I forgot Heidegger was your boss." She put a hand up to her mouth and let out her clear, loud, mocking laugh. It was almost musical… like a bugle horn at 4am. He simply took the opportunity to scan the area, noting the other scuff marks in the dirt. He wasn't a skilled tracker, but he could recognize footprints in an environment like this and the large prints left by Cait Sith's mog were obvious. Scarlet's laughter died down, slightly put out by Tseng's lack of reaction. "Let's go, this humidity is doing nothing for my hair."

_Yes, it's the humidity. It has absolutely nothing to do with the helicopter ride… _Tseng followed along silently and dutifully, like the good little bodyguard he was supposed to be right now.

After the helicopter took off, and the group was coming out of their hiding spots, Aerith looked in the direction the aircraft had gone. "I have never felt as sorry for Tseng as I do in this moment." There was a silent round of agreement from everyone else present.

"I wonder what the ShinRa are up to." Cloud mused, "What kind of ultimate weapon? And what would they use it for?"

"Is there even such a thing as 'Junk materia?'" Tifa asked, as they gathered up near the old reactor core.

"Not if you're Yuffie," Aerith smirked.

Cloud went up to the core and looked in, something glowed dully in the dark shadows of the reactors remains. Reaching in, he pulled out an orb, it was dull, covered in years of dirt. Rubbing it against his shirt like an apple he looked at it again and grinned. It was red, a summon materia.

Cait Sith shook his head, "That woman's standards are way too high."

***

By the time they got to the ruins, the scouting group had used what summons they had more frequently than normal. It made for additional targets for the Frog Songs, which summons, as spiritual beings, were immune to.

Nanaki and Ralena were not happy about it. They preferred to win by their own skill as warriors. However, getting turned into an amphibian then almost chomped by a larger creature was enough to make you think twice about what pride was worth. Especially when one of those "larger creatures" happened to be Ralena's own chocobo. Even mastered Durability Materia could only do so much to counter being turned into a frog.

"With as much frogging as we been through, I'm surprised that the people around here aren't known for giving birth to tadpoles." Cid commented. The heat induced sweat that coated him made him feel like he still had amphibian skin.

"I had no idea there were so many of them in this jungle," Ralena lamented. Their other Heal materia, which allowed one to cast the _Esuna_ spell that could undo transformations, was in Aerith's hands which did them little good now that they were hours into the jungle.

"Stay alert," Nanaki said as they stepped onto the flagstones that kept the jungle undergrowth at bay, "This place is likely shelter for some sort of creature."

It wasn't too large, as far as ancient ruins went, a few small out buildings that peeked out through the encroaching jungle and one larger structure in the middle of them. A three step pyramid, with openings on each level.

After a patrol around the main building, they went in to clear it. It was mostly populated by small creatures that fled at their arrival, or insects that were unbothered by them, until Iris decided that they looked like a tasty snack. The top floor had a large bird nest that was currently unoccupied, they decided it was best to leave it be.

It was strange, Ralena could feel the weight and age of the place. Perhaps her connection to the Ancients was not as broken as she and Aerith had imagined. The other day the two had gone out to sit in the grass to see if she could hear the planet. She hadn't managed it, Aerith could just hear it, a sense like Ralena's empathy that could be turned down but could not always be ignored. The only other thing she could think of was that maybe it was on another wavelength, like how memory echoes were different from emotions. She just wasn't sure it was one that she had access to. They had sat out there for two hours, and while she had seen flashes of sports games in the field and even an old battle, she had seemed no closer to being able to contact the planet. It wasn't surprising, she could barely get broad stroke emotions out of animals, how was she supposed to figure out the _planet_? But the Cetra were people after all, so maybe their memories just clung on longer, the same way their souls could endure the Lifestream.

***

"Well that was awkward…" Cait Sith said as he and Vincent stood aside and watched Cloud go talk to Aerith.

"Indeed," the red eyed man responded.

They had been walking through the town, asking a few people about where to find the person who sold the artifact lived. One of the older men they spoke to noticed Cloud's eyes and uniform as asked him if he knew his son Zack in SOLDIER. Aerith and Tifa both showed signs of recognition, but neither said anything. Cloud on the other hand seemed to have no idea who he was talking about.

Vincent narrowed his eyes slightly as Cloud talked to Aerith and then Tifa, both of whom had retreated from the conversation with the man in an abrupt manner. These reactions did not line up with the facts he had. Why would Cloud forget the man whose sword he now wielded? Why would Tifa deny knowing his existence? What did Aerith have to do with him?

***

The man they were interested in visiting had bought some land on the edge of town. As they walked down the path towards the house, Cloud turned to Aerith after a little bit. "Do you want to talk about him? About Zack?"

She turned to him, surprised that he would ask. It wasn't exactly the right move, but he was trying, so she would too. "Hmm… what to say," she mused, trying to put on a brave face. "I met him when he fell through the roof of my church."

"Heh, I did that too," he grinned.

"But I first met you when you bought a flower. Zack was the one who suggested I sell them in the first place."

He shook his head, "I didn’t buy a flower... I bought a smile, the flower just came with it."

Aerith blushed and smiled, he could be surprisingly sweet at unexpected moments.When he did, his smile reminded her of Zack…

At the rear of the group Vincent noticed Tifa lagging behind the others. As she had in Costa Del Sol, he slowed and fell into step beside her. "You've met SOLDIER Zack, haven't you?"

"Ye- no… how did you…?" Caught off guard, she had slipped up. She looked ahead and was happy to see that the others hadn't heard the quietly asked question.

He gestured back to the village with a tilt of his head, "I read people better than Cloud." He had to be careful, he couldn't explain everything he knew at this moment. Especially with the recently raised suspicion of a spy in the group. He would much prefer to reveal what they knew when Ralena was present as well.

"I prefer not to talk about it," she said, wrapping her arms around herself, "It's… not a good memory."

"Does this have anything to do with Cloud's... moments?" Again Tifa visibly reacted, stopping in her progress down the path. Vincent stopped as well, letting the distance between them and the others grow. She had a slightly frightened look on her face, but the question was plain. "I am more observant than Cloud is too," he answered.

She gathered herself in a matter of moments and put her hands on her hips. "I'm sorry, Vincent, but I don't see how it's your business."

"The mental stability of our leader is everyone's business," he replied, his voice was lacking the usual bored undertone and sounded serious. "I haven't said anything because he hasn't made any bad calls yet. But believe me when I say that my trust in him is limited when he keeps momentarily falling into what appears to be a fugue state."

The fact that Reno had called him a "_toy_ SOLDIER" had not escaped her notice. She had a feeling that the Turks knew what had happened to him, but it wasn't like she could ask. "Will you help me keep an eye on him?"

He blinked, that was not the reaction he was expecting. "Aside from what I am already doing?"

"I'm trying to figure it all out," Tifa said with a sigh, they started walking again, the others were certainly far enough ahead to not hear them now. "He doesn't know things he should…"

He thought a moment. "From the outside," he started, "It reminds me of when Ralena is trying to force out foreign emotions. Perhaps it is a side-effect of the SOLDIER treatment," he suggested. "Mako can have any number of effects on the brain."

"That's a scary thought," Tifa mused, "There are a lot of SOLDIERs. If it's a common side effect then the ShinRa's elite fighting force is full of highly trained and mentally unstable people." It made some sense and made her feel a little bit better, but only for a moment. She thought about what happened when Sephiroth lost it... could that happen to Cloud? And it still didn't explain him knowing things he _shouldn't_ know.

Cait Sith looked back at Vincent and Tifa talking in the back. He'd only caught the tail end of their discussion and was annoyed at himself for missing it. As cute as Cloud and Aerith's conversation was, he was sure anything that Vincent had bothered to talk about would have been more informative.

When they arrived at the house, the former digger wasn't exactly happy to be receiving visitors, but he answered their few questions readily enough. Since his buyer, the owner of the Golden Saucer, had it on public display, he felt there was no harm in telling them who he sold it to. He also showed them a photo of the relic, and they agreed it was probably what they were looking for.

***

The ruins had some surviving carvings, but the subject matter had all seemed rather mundane, crops, animals and craftsmen. Eventually they determined that it was probably a sort of waystation or market place. Ralena agreed with the other's assessment, not sharing that she had seen flashes of exchange and hospitality to support the theory. She smirked, maybe when this was all done she could become an adventurer-archeologist or something.

In the end, they found a few things of interest, but nothing indicating it had anything to do with the promised land. "So we came out here for nothing?" Yuffie whined.

"Is that a Materia?" Cid asked.

"Really? Where!?" The others laughed and Yuffie pouted. "That's not funny you guys…"

"It is," Cid said with a grin, "But I wasn't jokin'." He had crossed the room by now and pulled his scarf out of his pocket, rubbing a chest high spot on the wall. When he pulled back, the curved surface of a magenta orb imbedded in the wall was obvious.

"What do you think it is?"

Nanaki moved forward, putting his front paws on the wall, one of them upon the orb. Eyes closed, he listened to what it told him. "Seems to be an Enemy Away," he said after a few seconds .

"I think we should just leave it," Barret said.

"Are you nuts?" Yuffie blanched.

"Look, it keeps this place safe, and do you know how long that’s gonna take to dig outta that wall?" Barret had mined coal for years, and he had a sneaking suspicion that the materia they saw was bigger than the others thought.

"But.. but... it's MATERIA."

"If you wanna stay here, for hours maybe, and try to pry it out without scratching it, be my guest. But I think we should just leave, get the hell outta this jungle, cool down and get some sleep."

The others whole heartedly agreed with Barret, and after a few more minutes they convinced Yuffie to leave the materia in the wall. Ralena found herself anxious to get back to the others. Since the girls had brought up the possibility that she had romantic feelings for Vincent, she'd been paying particular attention to herself. She didn't really miss him today, but that didn't mean much, fighting, and hopping, your way through the jungle had a way of occupying one's mind. Yes, she was anxious to see him, that probably had to do with wanting to see how she felt. That was all, she was sure. They were friends after all. She was looking forward to seeing the others too, so it wasn't like it was that odd… Yes, she just wanted to see her friends again, and he happened to be her closest friend.

***

"Can I talk to you?"

Vincent stood as the spikey haired blonde approached him, this was good, they could get this discussion out of the way, "Of course." Vincent had already been in a spot that should be out of earshot of the others as they were waiting by the Tiny Bronco for the rest of the group to rejoin them.

"About what you said to Reno, is it really that simple?"

He looked in the man's blue eyes, he wasn't angry, or disappointed, he just wanted confirmation. "No, it is not. Though I should not have spoken for Ralena."

"Then why did you say you would consider it?"

"Because I would if it meant I could kill Hojo. Consideration is not the same as acceptance." He watched the shorter man think on this, then spoke again. "Also, it make us look less stable. If the Turks think we are fractured, they will perceive us as a weaker unit." Given how they had fought today, it wasn't a hard conclusion to reach...

Cloud almost smiled in relief, "If you were hoping something like that would fool them, then you must not think there's a spy in the group."

Vincent resisted the urge to sigh, these hopeful leaps in logic were almost distressing. "I never said that," he said flatly. He looked back to the plane and the robotic feline talking to the two women taking shelter in the nearby shade. "But it wouldn't hurt to check the Tiny Bronco for tracking devices."

That wasn't likely to turn up anything, unless the spy had planted a dummy device to be found, which is what he would have done. If one was found, Cloud and the others would be at ease, such a device could have been planted while they had been in Costa Del Sol for days. Still it wouldn't solve the real problem.

Vincent's earlier suspicions included Yuffie and Cid as well. It didn't take long to conclude that Yuffie was an open book and couldn't pull off something like this without blurting everything out by day three, if not sooner. Cid didn't seem the type, and his anger seemed too raw to be faked and that left the captain far below the robotic cat in likelihood. In addition, Cait Sith was the only one that Ralena couldn't read, and she hadn't come to him about any of the others.

To be truthful if the others should suspect anyone, it should be himself and the empath. They had recently been to Midgar, after only being with the group for a short period of time and then the Turks show up not long after they rejoined. Fortunately, no one else was as suspicious as he was, so he didn’t have to try hard to dissuade any scrutiny.

***

The Shadows were long by the time the scouting group got back from the ruins.

They had called ahead on their way back, and Cloud made the decision for the group to stay the night in town, after a quick sweep to make sure that the Turks had vacated the area. The fact that they were already gone puzzled the SOLDIER, but he assumed it was because they had been there as security for Scarlet and left with her. Vincent knew it had to be more than that, but didn’t have enough information to say what their intent could truly be. He'd had suspicions that the Turks watched them for a bit, which implied that if they had a spy, he wasn't completely trusted.

There was little revelry, Aerith and Tifa made sure that food was ordered and ready by the time the other group got back. Hot and tired from their trek through the jungle, and being frogged, a lot, they were grateful for it. Having eaten, they bathed and went to sleep with little additional chatter.

***

There was something different in the shadows. Something more potent. Something ancient. Not the taunting grin and shining glasses of Hojo. Yellow eyes, primal and intelligent were watching him. He knew this thing. It had been in his dreams from time to time. This was one of The Others within him. The last one, the one that rarely bothered to raise its head, the one that sleeps, Chaos.

It lurked in the corners of his most cruel and violent dreams. Not where he was shot or tortured, but dreams where Vincent got his hands on Hojo. Dreams in which he relished inflicting cruel tortures on the man he had not conceived that he would enjoy. Those dreams disturbed him the most in the long run. Those that showed it was possible for him to become as cruel and heartless as Hojo. As a Turk he had learned how to torture. He could stomach it, but he preferred to use other interrogation tactics. Torture often led to desperate, sometimes made up answers, just to get you to stop. Turks got the truth. Otherwise, he felt it was just a damn waste of time, If you were going to kill someone, just do it. The injured could heal and come back for revenge, which Hojo would learn soon enough.

He walked down a hall in the lab under ShinRa Manor, wearing his old Turk suit. Behind one door he heard Lucrecia crying, but he couldn't turn himself to open the door. Instead he followed the muttering of Hojo's voice to a door that was ajar at the end of the hall. The crying faded away and his steps echoed loudly in absence of any other sound. Dull light, with just a tint of a sickly green, spilled into the dark passage. The door opened partway as he approached, revealing Hojo standing before an exam table that was tilted at an angle. The top half of his victim was still obscured by the door. Vincent stopped.

It was usually himself in that spot, and it was unusual for him to be outside of his own perspective. After a moment he realized the form was too small and dressed in white scrubs. The figure's visible hand and feet were strapped down and seemed to have delicate features. Lucrecia? No, she was crying in the other room...

Leads went from a machine next to the madman to the figure on the table. "Now, let's see how you handle electrical currents this time," Hojo said in a kind of clinical neutrality with a hint of excitement. Sometimes Vincent wondered if the man got off on seeing test results. He saw the body shiver in fear, as the doctor went to the controls. Vincent felt dread rise in his throat, moments like this were the ones he remembered among his time under Hojo's knife. Had it been months? Years? He had little way of knowing.

He felt his hand move towards the door. If he wanted to know who was on the slab, he would have to look himself. There was a stifled sob and his hand froze.

Female. Young. Not Lucrecia.

"You can't cry yet," Hojo said with a degree of disappointment, like someone didn't make his coffee right. "We are measuring tolerance after all." He looked at a clipboard, "Last time you didn't scream until level six and past out at eight." He fiddled with the machine, "Let's start at four to get you warmed up."

Vincent felt a lump form in his throat, as part of creating, or implanting, the Death Gigas within him, he had maxed out that machine, which went to 15. After which Hojo had switched to a higher voltage generator.

There was a strange sort a paternal tone to Hojo's next words, "Now remember, do your best not to scream." He flipped the switch. An electronic buzz filled the air and the body stiffened and twitched. After several seconds the doctor turned it off and made some notes.

Why couldn't he move? His hand was still hovering next to the door. Less than an inch from pushing it aside.

_Because 'nothing' is what you do_. _Or has that changed?_ He felt _it_ behind him. Lurking in the shadows of his soul and mocking him.

Vincent stewed and tried to force his body to move. Hojo moved the dial up to five, 5.5, then six. In between the settings Hojo would switch the machine off and take notes, the subject whimpered every time. At 6.25 she screamed and Vincent managed to slam the door open. He froze again, as though the being behind him insisted he remember this very vision.

He had interrupted Hojo, so the switch was still on. The scientist looked at him with disdain, while the girl screamed. She looked like she had in the photo on the farm, with scarlet hair barely long enough to cover her ears and a youthful slimness to her tortured body. "What are _you_ doing here?" Hojo asked with all too familiar contempt.

Vincent's vision lost all color, save for the girl and the man. He rushed Hojo, and rammed his claw into the man's torso, grabbing hold of whatever organs happened to be there before ripping them out and letting them fall to the floor with a satisfying splatter. The young girl still screamed in pain. Vincent turned to the controls, but they had been pushed out of his reach. He stepped towards it and it rolled further away.

_You only get one_, he heard. _Seems_ r_evenge is still most important._

She was still screaming in his head when his eyes snapped open. He sat up slowly, bringing a hand to his head. He let out a slow, shuddering breath. The idea of her in Hojo's hands again didn't sit well with him, but seeing it sent chills through his chest.

It was stupid. In reality he would be able to do both of those simple things. Kill Hojo and stop the pain.

But those tasks weren't simple, were they? If it were, Hojo would be dead and he wouldn't be with Avalanche anymore… would he?

Would he leave once he was done with Hojo? Where would he go anyway? What would he do? He supposed that depended on the state of things when it happened. It wasn't worth thinking about.

He sat there a few minutes more, before deciding it was pointless to go back to sleep. He got up and silently left the room in only the pants and undershirt he had been sleeping in. The inn had a small alcove at the end of the hall where snack machines and ice could be found. Hearing the sound of someone else that way, he decided to see who it was.

Of course it was her, in her star print pajama pants and white tank top. Despite the quiet with which he approached, neither of them had bothered with shoes, she turned from pondering the machine to look at him.

He met her green eyes, and she gave him a tired smile then read the question on his face. "Nightmare," she answered, "You?"

He nodded, sitting down in one of the two chairs at the small table in the space.

After a little bit more consideration, she put some coins in the machine, in the quiet of the night it sounded like a hammer. "I was younger," she said dully. The tone she used was how she spoke when she wasn't sure if she should talk or didn't want to feel. This time it was probably both. He could barely hear her over the hum of the machine's cooling mechanism. Turning so that he could almost see her profile over her shoulder, he watched her move her scarlet locks behind one ear, he could see that her lips had gone back to a frown. "Electrical tolerance testing." Her shoulders twitched as if in memory. After a pause she pushed the button for her selections and the dropping beverages clanged loudly.

She had her back to him as she got the drink, otherwise she would have noticed his reaction to her statement. _Did you do this, Chaos?_ He asked of the beast within himself. He rarely addressed it directly, for fear of making it feel welcome. _Did you bring her into my nightmare?_

He felt a sardonic smile pointed at him_._ He got the sense that it was saying something to him, but while awake he could not make it out, something about a matching set. The tone was clearly mocking.

_Go back to sleep, _Vincent scowled.

"Sorry," she said at his expression, thinking it was about what she said. Sitting down with two drinks, she passed one over to him. "I shouldn't have brought it up. I used to have those dreams like that all the time."

He shook his head, "Don't be, I'm dealing with my own demons tonight." It took effort not to let his frustration come out in his voice. There was a chance it was a coincidence. Which he would prefer be the case, if Chaos could do something like bring other people into his dreams, that would raise a whole host of concerns he had never considered. Good thing it was dormant most of the time.

"Pretty sure we share one," she said, a bit of dry humor to her voice. It was no secret to her that Hojo featured in nearly all of his nightmares.

He sighed, did everything they had in common have to revolve around Hojo? Because, apparently, past suffering was what they had in common.

Well, that and a love of blueberry muffins.

***

After finishing her beverage, Ralena had excused herself and went to flop face first down on her bed, hoping to catch another hour or so of sleep. Her attempts at diagnosing her own feelings had been a bust. They were so tired and done with the day in the jungle that she barely had the energy to think when they reunited with the others. She hardly considered the comfort she felt in talking to him during a post-nightmare drink to be evidence. Of all people, one would think she should know what these things felt like. But she'd made such a priority of _not_ using her abilities to pry into other lives in the past that she couldn't be sure. Combine that with a small, spread out town with a relative lack of new romances, and she had little experience with love. Sure, she knew what _a_ kind of love felt like, but the aged and comfortable love of the Telly's was a far cry from… whatever it was she felt.

Ugh, she was thinking way too much about her hard-to-define feelings.

Screw it, she decided. Obsessing over it wouldn't change anything and just make it so that she couldn't get any sleep. They were friends and they had shit to do. If something came of it later, than that was fine… probably.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Yay! Turks!  
• Also Scarlet Bashing ^_^  
• The game has a limit of 3 party members, but I don't  
• Replacing the HP Plus materia with Increased Durability, as in my head cannon they don't actually have "hit points". So equipping it makes you unnaturally durable to mitigate damage, rather than increase the amount of damage your body can physically take.


	12. Interrupted By Discord

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In the Arena; Going forward and backward; False stars; Apologies and Confusion; Observations; A Night Out

Back tracking up north again, Avalanche made it to North Corel next to the Gold Saucer just before dark, camping the night they arrived with the intent of being in and out of the Saucer quickly the next morning.

"Let's not take too long." Cloud said as they rode up in the cable car, "We'll see if he has it first and what he wants for it, then decide if we need to split up."

"It's probably in his showroom," Cait Sith offered. "I say we head straight there. It's in Battle Square."

Several members of Avalanche decided to wait outside the tram by the entrance. Barret had said something about not being sure if he was welcome, and Nanaki seemed disinterested. The bright lights and colors of the Golden Saucer did not appeal to Vincent, neither did all of the noise. He glanced at Ralena, who looked at the entrance and all of the people milling beyond with a sense of trepidation that was trying to be beaten down by her determination. While not lighting up, her eyes were shifting back and forth from hazel to green. He could see now, that the green seemed to bloom out from the middle of her eyes, rather than each part actively changing color. As though the green pushed the elements of brown to the back. He wondered if the redhead was testing the waters, or if she couldn't control the fluxes he saw.

"Are you alright?" Nanaki asked her.

"It's... more people than I expected," she said, swallowing a lump in her throat.

"I don't imagine we will have to stay long." Vincent put in. He certainly hoped that was the case. The crowd beyond the gate was at almost twice the thickness of what they had walked through in Costa Del Sol, and with it still being early it would only get thicker. In addition, there was only one real exit, so she would have little space for retreat.

"If we do," the feline added, "I can tell you where the quiet spots are."

"Really?" she asked humorously. "And why do you know about those?"

The feline's ears went back, "Some of the small one's think I am here to ride. One or two would not be a big deal, but in a crowd like this it gets out of hand."

The redhead giggled, and Vincent was relieved to see her shoulders relax a little.

"The place is mostly for families," Barret said gruffly, "but there is a good bar in the back. Has some good specialty brews."

"Oh?"

Vincent watched the conversation drift off, discussing the more subdued sections of the park that were tucked off of the main thoroughfares. It seemed now that she was distracted, the idea didn't seem to bother her. He supposed it was like anything else one would dread, if you didn't have time to dwell on it, it didn't bother you as much.

"Hey guys!" Came a call from beyond the gate. They looked to see Yuffie running up, an excited look on her face.

"What's goin' on?" Barret asked, alert. It took him a few moments longer to read the girl's mood.

"It's here, and guess what?" She grinned.

They looked at her and all made their own versions of a 'go-on' gesture.

"Dio's gonna have Cloud fight in the arena for it."

Vincent was non-plussed, but Nanaki and Ralena both seemed to perk up at the idea. "Oh, this we gotta see," she smiled at the cat.

"You've seen him fight before," Barret commented, "What's the big deal?"

Nanaki shook his head, "Fighting beside him is different, you can't always see everything. I would much enjoy watching his technique while I am not also in danger."

"And solo fighting is completely different too," the redhead added. "Do we have time to get there?"

"Oh yeah, plenty," Yuffie insisted.

"So long as no kids try to ride Nanaki again," Barret smirked.

***

In her excitement to see the fight Ralena had overestimated her ability to block people out. Fortunately, most of the crowd was in a good mood. As they moved through the crowd towards Battle Square, she ask Vincent with a look if she could focus on him again, he had nodded. It took quite a bit of willpower to not take his hand for support, but the idea of comments from the others kept her from doing so. They made it to the arena without her getting a headache or emotionally turning into a hyper eight-year-old. As it turned out, as Cloud's friends, Dio allowed Avalanche to sit in a spare box overlooking the arena. Which gave the empath the room she needed to breathe.

In the front row of the box she sat with Tifa, Nanaki and Yuffie. Ralena and the cat were practically on the edge of their seats. Behind them was a concerned Aerith and a stern looking Barret. Cid was in the back row with Cait Sith and Vincent stood, leaning against the wall, overlooking the arena and the others in the box.

The reactions had been interesting to watch. Cith Sith had no visible reaction, Vincent assumed his operator was using the opportunity to be off of the controls, but was probably still watching. Cid and Barret occasionally winced or grinned, but said little, or at least not loudly. Vincent was sure that Barret may have reacted differently had Aerith not been so concerned right next to him. She seemed like she wanted to get into it. An occasional small "yes!" escaped her lips, but she would also cover her face or mouth when Cloud took a hit. It was the first time he thought her reactions really matched her sweet appearance. Tifa watched stiffly as well, as a fellow frontline fighter she took his hits with much less reaction than Aerith had, and she relaxed between each round. She had a quiet studied look, like she was comparing him to something in her mind.

Nanaki, Yuffie and Ralena were the most animated of the lot. The teen cheered and groaned and shouted, as though Cloud would take her direction. Nanaki and Ralena discussed Cloud's tactics, comparing it to their own for each round, providing an interesting commentary. "We should tell him about that weak side," Nanaki said after the fifth round. Ralena heartily agreed. None of the front line fighters could risk weaknesses in their defenses, they already got roughed up enough as it was.

Cloud reluctantly tapped out after the seventh round, and the group congregated in the back portion of the box. The four from the front row were still talking about what they had seen, Tifa joining in more, now that the actual fighting was done. Ralena hadn't been kidding in Costa Del Sol, when she said she liked fighting. Vincent couldn't remember her being this excited about anything, save for introducing him to her blade master, Flynn.

Cloud joined them about ten minutes later, healed up and proudly displaying the Key Stone they had come for. Considering that it was barely mid-day they all agreed that they should go ahead and leave, even if some of the others wanted to try their hand at the Arena as well.

It turned out they would get their chance.

As they went to leave, they found out that the tram was broken. Cait Sith was quick to recommend that they get rooms, which he could bargain for, or even get free. "Why don't we just wait for the tram to get fixed?" Barret asked, "It'll only be a couple of hours."

"By then it will be late enough that it might not be worth leaving," Cloud shrugged. "Let's just take the rooms."

"Well in that case-"

"Don't run off yet," Cloud said, staring at the redhead, teen and feline. The three stopped in their tracks and turned back like they had been caught sneaking out to an X-rated movie. 

Aerith came up next to him, "They got so excited watching you fight…" she said with a worried, but pointed tone.

Cloud sighed, "Fine, ONE hour, then we'll meet in the hotel lobby. We'll just have a quick meet to discuss our next move and after that everyone can have the rest of the day to get beat up if they want…"

"Thanks, Cloud!" Yuffie waved and ran off, like her dad had just given her the car keys.

Cid decided to "go see the brats fight," and followed after them at a much more leisurely pace. The rest went ahead towards the hotel to pass the hour in what would hopefully be a more quiet place.

***

"This is where we are staying?" Vincent asked incredulously, a flash of fake lightning illuminating him briefly.

Tifa giggled, it was the perfect backdrop for the man's appearance, but even without seeing his while face, he couldn't look more displeased about it. "This is the Saucer's Ghost hotel," she stated. It was garishly spooky, placed in a fake graveyard, with leafless, black-barked trees. The architecture of the hotel was reminiscent of old houses from over 100 years ago, giving an air of the old and haunted. Inside she knew there was red carpeting, portraits whose eyes followed you, fake cobwebs, and a number of lighting effects to mimic ghosts, spiders and other creepy denizens.

After the second guest and an employee mistook him for someone working there, Vincent ended up making himself more scarce, retreating to one of the rooms Cait Sith had gotten for them until the others got back.

They met in the lobby later, Tifa and Aerith had arranged some lunch and Cait had acquired a meeting room they could sit in, rather than having their discussion out in a public space.

As they ate, they discussed room arrangements, Cait had managed to get three doubles and one triple. The girls split the doubles and Cait Sith, Red XIII and Vincent agreed to share the other, leaving Cid, Cloud and Barret in the triple.

Now that they had the keystone, they had to discuss their next course of action. "So, I missed it before," Ralena said, tossing the wrapping for her lunch away, "What is the keystone exactly?"

"It's a key, that's made of stone," Yuffie answered, as though proud that she remembered the fact.

"I know that, what's it a key _for_?"

There was a beat of silence before Cloud spoke up. "We don't know for sure," he admitted, "We know it's for one of the ruins that the Ancients left behind."

"But we're not sure which one," Aerith stepped in. "It's one of the things we looked into at the Costa Del Sol library. So we have a few places we can check out. Naturally, they are all over the place…"

"I think the closest one is near Cosmo Canyon, since we checked out the one by Gongaga already" Cloud said, "Do you think we can get there in the Bronco, Cid?"

"Shouldn't be a problem," the captain said. "We can at least get a helluva lot closer."

"Now that I know what we are looking for," Cait Sith piped up, "I can do some research on my end tonight. I bet I can narrow it down by more than just the closest one. Do you have a top three I should focus on?"

Aerith nodded to him, and there was a brief discussion of their possible destinations.

"So, what else are we dealing with? In terms of Sephiroth, I mean?" Cid asked.

"Well it seems like he's got a bunch of people in black cloaks with number tattoos looking for the Black Materia," Cloud said. Ralena stiffened at the description. "Dio said one came around asking about it."

"How many do you think there are?" Barret asked.

"If it's the same ones, I counted at least a dozen on the streets of Nibelheim," Ralena said quietly, just loud enough to be heard, "I'm pretty sure there were probably more inside." She didn't like to think about those people, and what that place felt like. But it was information, and that was something they were in short supply of.

"My number is thirteen," Nanaki said, a hint a fear coloring his voice.

"I think we're in a different set," Ralena said, trying to sound more confident than she felt. "The one number I saw in Nibelheim was three, same as mine."

"And this all leads back to the fact that Sephiroth is going after the promised land." Cloud and Aerith went on to explain that the Promised Land was a legend of the Cetra that offered "boundless happiness and prosperity." No one knew if it was real and Aerith explained that a Cetra would feel it when they got there… which wasn't particularly helpful in terms of locating it.

"Sephiroth sees humanity as his enemy," Vincent said, "I can't imagine anything he wants to do would be good for anyone else."

"How do you know that?" Cloud asked. Everyone turned to look at him.

"Nibelheim, I saw what happened." Ralena said. She'd seen him break, the constant hammering of how he came to be, wearing away his sanity until...

"Wha… how?" Tifa asked.

"We found some archive footage in the basement at Nibelheim," Vincent lied, before the empath could answer. "It was fragmented, but we managed to see some of the… highlights, from the mansion and the reactor." He shared a look with Ralena, she wasn't sure whether or not she was happy that he stepped in. She didn't mind Avalanche knowing what she could do, but there was still the fact that he suspected Cait Sith was a spy and they did not want ShinRa to know about everything she was capable of. He'd had to remind her of that fact after the trick she pulled at the lock-in.

"Care to share?" Cloud asked.

"At the time," Vincent said, "Sephiroth believed his mother's name was Jenova, which it isn't. The notes in the lab said that Jenova was one of the Ancients, a Cetra, which we now know is incorrect as well. Regardless, he came to believe that the humans destroyed his kind and stole the planet from them," he sighed. "And then…"

"He burned down Nibelheim…" Cloud muttered darkly.

"There wasn't too much from the reactor footage," Vincent continued, "patchy segments of you all trying to stop him." He caught Tifa's eye as he had made a point of not mentioning Zack.

"Nice throw by the way," Ralena said to Cloud. Tifa's eyes snapped over to the redhead, but from how they were sitting, she didn't notice. The empath sighed and sat back limply in her chair, "I just wish we could help him somehow…" she muttered.

Everyone in the room stared at her now. "Help him?!" Cloud said, voice a little louder than was warranted.

She winced, she hadn't meant to say that aloud. "I mean," she sighed again, "I dunno, maybe convince him to NOT try and take over the planet." It sounded really stupid out loud.

"Do you have any idea how many people he's killed?"

"Do you know how many you have?" She shouldn't have turned it around on him.

"What!?"

Vincent did not like where this was going, but the glow seeping into the empath's eyes implied that the train was just picking up speed.

"You think every ShinRa soldier you fought survived their injuries?"

"They weren't innocents, they were trained enemy soldiers that were trying to kill us!" Tifa and Barret seemed to have reactions to this. Ralena hadn't been with them in Midgar. She didn't know about their involvement in the Reactor 1 explosion and the Sector 7 collapse.

"Sephiroth is a SOLDIER, trained to kill his enemies," she said with a tone that suggested he was an idiot for not realizing it. "If we could bring him down, convince him that every human isn't the enemy-"

"So what? You're going to sit down and have goddamn tea with him!?" There were several more exchanges, each with increasing volume and both were on their feet before long. Between shock and their momentum, no one else even managed to speak up. Vincent could sense it, a glance shared with Aerith showed that she had seen the same. They were feeding off of each other in an avalanche of emotion. Either something would snap them out of it, or they might have to stop the two sword wielders from coming to blows. Vincent started to move around, in case he had to hold Ralena back. Cid spotted the movement and started towards his fellow blonde as well.

"You think that's going to work?" Cloud's Mako blue eyes were full of fury. She wanted to redeem the madman that burned down his home town. The man that killed his mother and nearly killed Tifa. "He's insane!"

"I know that he's insane!" she shouted, tears welling up in her Mako green eyes, giving Cloud pause. A wave of frustrated helplessness and resignation hit him and flooded the room. He had forgotten her abilities until that moment, he was fairly certain she wasn't thinking about it either. "… I know we have to stop him." Her voice was back to a normal level now, but it cracked with emotion and she blushed as she suddenly remembered everyone else in the room. She was staring at the table but not registering anything her eyes told her. "It's stupid of me to even hope that we could get through to him. I know he's done a lot of terrible things… But I don't think it should cancel out everything good he did before that."

"You know what he did," Cloud said, his voice still hard, but more quietly than before. "How much good could he have done?"

She looked as though she was about to reply, then gave up Cloud as a lost cause. "Oh, forget it!" the empath turned and walked out of the room.

Yuffie stood to follow her out, but Vincent gestured to the ninja that he would handle it. He stopped at the door and turned to look over his shoulder at the room. "The one who rescued Ralena from Hojo, just over 5 years ago… was Sephiroth." There were several nearly audible sounds of realization sinking in as he left the room.

***

"You really should talk to her," Tifa said after most of the others had left. Cloud had sat down heavily in the chair and the former bartender and flower girl had stuck around, under the pretense of cleaning up. He looked at her, then Aerith, who nodded her agreement.

"What am I supposed to say?"

"You could apologize," Aerith suggested.

He looked genuinely confused, "What for?"

Aerith and Tifa shared a glance, they both knew Cloud could be a bit rough around the edges, like he was somehow less experienced in life than his age suggested. "Well.." Aerith said, "You both escalated pretty quickly…"

"If we both did it, why do I have to apologize?"

"Because you're suppose ta be the leader," They turned to the deep voice at the door. Barret's massive frame moved back into the room. The former leader of the group walked up to Cloud, meeting him as he stood. "It ain't an easy job bein' the boss," he continued, "It's not just about tellin' people what to do an' kickin' the most ass. You gotta be able to diffuse trouble, not get in it. You gotta look like you got it together even when you don't."

Cloud cocked his head slightly, "But you were always yelling."

Tifa stifled a snicker and Barret shot her a quick glare, "I said it ain't easy. You think I let you take the job because I thought _I _was good at it? 'Knowing how' and 'being able to' are two different things. " He reached forward and put his hand on the blonde's shoulder. "Whatever you do, don't give no bullshit apology. Think about what you should have done, and figure it out from there. You don't have to say you're sorry for disagreeing with her, either. Just be honest." Then he grinned, "Especially with that one, she'll know if yer lyin'."

***

Vincent found Ralena sitting outside the hotel on one of the seats made to look like tombstones, looking up at the pinpoints of light in the painted ceiling. He sat on the one next to hers and waited for her to speak. While Yuffie had her best interests at heart, he had a feeling her approach would not be good while the moment was raw. In about ten or twenty minutes perhaps, but not just yet.

"I can't believe I went off like that," she said quietly, ducking her head. She had always tried so hard to control her actions. It was one of her few social safeguards and she depended on it when her senses made her emotions unpredictable. She considered it a failing when she couldn't.

He considered a response, in the end he decided that his silent support was better.

She looked back up, "When Sephiroth showed me the stars, it was a lot like this…" She said wistfully.

He looked around, confused. "Spooky?"

"No," she laughed, "… they were fake." She turned to him and he tilted his head to show interest and she continued. "The SOLDIERS had a special room to train in," she made a sweeping gesture to the pinholes in the black painted ceiling. "It was capable of making amazing holograms…"

***

The moment the lights came on in her room her eyes opened. Rubbing her eyes she sat up. There was a knock and a pause before the door opened. Black boots stepped into the room, "Sorry, did I wake you Ralena?"

"It's ok," the teen answered. "I like when you visit."

A smile touched his cat-like green eyes, "Are you well today?"

She nodded, "I'm good, the doctor is away. So I just did some P.T. and practiced."

"Practiced?"

Jumping out of the bed, she went to her bookshelf. Pulling out a book and then some paper hidden in it. She stretched it out, several taped together sheets with black and white rectangles all the way down it. "See?" she smiled brightly, "I keep it hidden when the doctor is here, but the assistants don't pay much attention."

He stared at the paper, "Piano?"

"Just like you play Sephiroth, I think someone just throws leftover books in here. I found a beginner's guide!" She showed him the thin manual.

The SOLDIER smiled, she was so childlike, but he supposed growing up in isolation, with stretches of days on your own, could do that. "I have a surprise for you, if you are up for it."

"Of course!"

"We’re staying in the building, but I'm going to take you for a walk."

"Really!?"

It amazed him how happy she could be over the simplest things. "We've got to be sneaky about this so I don't get in trouble. So put this on." He handed her a bag and left the room, "Knock when you are changed."

A few minutes later, he opened the door to find her in a slightly oversized Third Class SOLDIER uniform. He could tell that she was uncomfortable, but the excited anticipation that literally radiated out of her green eyes spoke more. He put the helmet he had been holding on top of her short red locks. "Now follow me, no one should be up at this hour, but don't stray."

"Yessir!" she giggled, with a sloppy salute.

Normally he detested such things, but from this girl he found it endearing. He led her down some stairs and through empty halls, which didn't seem to bother her. When they rode the elevator down she all but plastered herself to the glass, looking at the glow of the rain swept, sleeping city below. Eventually he led her to a set of blast doors and opened them, she stepped into a large open room, with metal wall panels and a white floor. She turned as he shut the door. "What is this place Seph?"

"A training room," he had his back to her, she heard beeping coming from something in his hand.

"Training for what?"

He chuckled, "It doesn't matter, today I just wanted to show you…"

There was one last beep and then a cascade of small shimmering squares flowed over the walls and floor, causing her to yelp in surprise. A moment later she found herself standing on the end of a huge metal cylinder. Wind brushed past her face and water lapped far below. She went on all fours and looked over the edge to stare down over the side in awe at the dark, sparkling water. From her perspective she never would have recognized the Junon Cannon. After a brief period, a voice interrupted her thoughts, "Ralena."

"huh?"

He took the helmet off of her head, eyes shining with satisfaction at the simple joy he brought her. "Look up."

She did, and almost cried.

Stars, thousands and thousands of stars lit the night sky above her. Swathes of deep blue and black with tiny and bright points of light and a mere crescent moon so as not to outshine them. "It's better than I remember!" she laughed, "they sparkle like broken glass!"

For a moment he lost his smile. Stars didn't sparkle like glitter, or diamonds, or even morning dew. The closest thing this girl could equate stars to was shards of glass. Fortunately, her mood was infectious, she couldn't help herself, and he let those dark thoughts pass for another time.

***

"He let me stay in there for a while, I didn't want to leave…" she stared up at the fake sky above them. "That's when I learned that we need to find our own stars."

"What do you mean?"

"Just because it's dark, doesn't mean there is no light. If you look, you can usually find some, right?" She gave him a knowing smile, her eyes a dull green, then she winced slightly, bringing a hand to her forehead.

"Are you ok?"

"It's fine… just the background noise is starting to be a bit much."

He stood and held out his hand to her, "Why don't we go up in the gondola?"

"What?" that was an unexpected offer.

"It should take you far enough from others. If you would prefer to go alone, I understand."

She deflated somewhat. That made sense, he just wanted to help her re-center. "No, you can come along. I'm used to you and you're pretty stable." She smiled softly at him, "I would prefer your company." There was something about his presence that always soothed her nerves and made everything seem okay. Maybe it was his understated nature, it was very much like the Sephiroth she had known.

The pair stood and was about to walk off when they heard footsteps approach. They both looked to see their spikey haired leader. Vincent noticed a bit of reluctance in the man's body language and there were similar signs in Ralena. "I believe you two have something to discuss," he said.

"Don’t go too far," The redhead said, "I plan on taking you up on your offer."

She saw the slight shift in the shape of his eyes that suggested a smile and he gave a brief nod then walked back towards the hotel.

After he left, the two warriors stood in an awkward silence, neither sure how to address the moment. They knew it was best to get it over with, otherwise he wouldn't have come over and she wouldn't have stayed. But starting this conversation was hard. They both started to apologize at the same time and then laughed nervously about it.

Cloud was the first to recover, "I shouldn't have gotten on your case. Sometimes I forget that we all have different reasons for being here."

"I shouldn't have yelled back either. I let our emotions run away with me," she said. He raised a brow, he knew what she had meant, but the phrasing was still strange to hear out loud. "You had no reason to think I knew him… Or that he saved me from Hojo."

"Yeah… Vincent just told us." Cloud sat down on the nearest tombstone, bringing a knee up to rest his arm on it. "When I was a kid, I heard about Sephiroth, he was my hero, my idol. He was why I wanted to become a SOLDIER…"

She smiled and sat nearby, "He stumbled on me while he was walking the halls one night. Seph visited me for about a year before getting me out."

Blue eyes stared at her in surprise. "Wait… he let you call him Seph!?" Cloud exclaimed, he felt like a child learning that his parents' names weren't 'Mom' and 'Dad.'

"Uhh… yeah," she said, not seeing anything strange in it.

He found himself laughing at the sheer ridiculousness of it. "I'm sorry, it's just… I never.. _No one_ ever shortened his name. It took me by surprise."

"Didn't he have friends?"

"As far as I know, he only counted two other SOLDIERS as his friends. And they were announced KIA before I made it in."

There was a few seconds of silence before the redhead spoke up again. "Cloud… it doesn't have to be a lot right now, but could you tell me a little about the Sephiroth you knew, before… all the bad stuff."

"Sure," he said slowly. Taking a minute to try and remember a version of the man that he didn't hate. He told her a little about being one of Sephiroth's comrades. She was a little confused about his story, but didn't correct him…

The two had a relatively short exchange, and promised to talk more another time. Heading back into the hotel, they ran into Nanaki and Yuffie. They were going to check out everything the saucer had to offer, or at least as much as they could manage that afternoon and evening. Ralena promised to join them later, but for the moment she wanted to go talk to some of the others.

Tifa opened the door and was only slightly disappointed that it was Ralena and not Cloud who had come to see her.

"Hey Tifa… Can I come in to talk?"

"Sure," she said, moving aside to let her in. "Is everything ok?"

"Maybe," she said, "I was talking to Cloud a minute ago…"

"Did he apologize?"

She smiled, "Yes he did. We got to talking about how we each knew Sephiroth before… and something didn't add up."

"Like what?" The brawler was happy that she brought it up. She had wondered about what the empath had said in the meeting.

"Cloud totally believes what he is saying, I have no doubt about that." Ralena looked a little uncomfortable, trying to think about how to word things without exposing her secret. "But from what I saw, Cloud wasn't a SOLDIER at the time of the Nibelheim incident, and since it was Sephiroth's last order they could never have been SOLDIERs together."

Tifa looked surprised, "What do you mean 'at the time'?"

Now both girls were confused. "You were there right?" Ralena asked, she received a nod in response. "Who did ShinRa send?"

"Sephiroth, Zack, and some troops."

"Yeah… Cloud was one of the troops."

"He was what?" Tifa asked, quiet disbelief tinting her voice.

"Now that I think about it, I only saw his helmet off the once…" Ralena muttered.

"... That's how he knew what happened…" Tifa whispered, "He knew almost everything, but I swore he wasn't..."

Ralena realized they were both voicing thoughts aloud and hadn't quite been paying attention to each other. The empath was very confused, "... you, you knew he was there right?"

"Are you sure it was him?"

"With that chocobo hair? Oh yeah. I clearly remember his face when he took off his helmet and nabbed Zack's sword, he was so angry."

"When was that?"

"At the reactor, after you... got stabbed." Realization dawned on her, "Oh my god, you really didn't know it was him?"

"Why didn't he..." The martial artist closed her eyes and took a deep breath. "Wait, this is good," she smiled "This is actually really good…" her brow furrowed in confusion, "kinda."

"You've lost me."

"When Cloud told us what he remembered of the Nibelheim incident, I could never figure out how he knew, since I didn't think he was there. I think in his memories... in his memories he was in Zack's place."

The redhead scoffed, "I bet that is somehow Hojo's fault." It had become her habit to pin blame onto the mad scientist if he had been remotely nearby.

"What do you mean?"

"At the reactor, after everything, Hojo came and scooped up Zack and Cloud, but I don't know what happened to them after that." A brief mental image of the cloaked figure with the hand tattoo came to mind, but she shoved it away. "Mako has a way of messing with your head," she said, tapping her own temple in a gesture of self-deprecation.

Tifa was still trying to piece everything together, she wanted to make sure it all made sense. It just wasn't sinking in yet. She was nearly giddy with the realization that he really was Cloud, that he had been there, that he really had tried to protect her. But she still didn't know what had happened that caused his mind to fracture.

"So what does this mean?" Ralena asked after a while, breaking into Tifa's runaway thoughts.

Tifa shrugged, "I don't know, but at least _why he knows_ what he knows is less of a mystery." She grabbed the empath's hands, "Please don't tell him. There's still a lot I don't know about what happened after that. Maybe that's why he's put himself in Zack's place. I'm.. I'm not sure if he can handle the truth right now."

"You've known him the longest," Ralena said a little reluctantly, "I'm not sure I agree, but I'll follow your lead."

"Thank you, really."

They sat in a heavy silence for a minute before the redhead spoke up again. "While we're here, I'm going to drag Vincent along with Yuffie, Nanaki and I for some fun in a little bit, want to join us?"

Tifa had a brief mental image of Vincent playing arcade games and smirked. "You know, I think I'm going to try something else. But if that falls through, I'll come find you."

***

Aerith was talking with Barret and Cid in the lobby. It was an odd grouping for someone on the outside to see. But Cid had parked himself there, next to a window overlooking the "graveyard" after the meeting to see what the fallout from the shout-fest would be. When Cloud entered the lobby, the other longest members of Avalanche had come with him. Tifa had decided to go up to her room, while the other two joined the captain.

They had watched Vincent come back in from outside, who simply gave them a nod of acknowledgement on his way past. After which they re-oriented their seats to better see if the two sword wielders would end up arguing again, in case they had to intervene. They engaged in running commentary on what little they could make out from distance and spooky lighting, but were happy to note that it looked like they had made up.

A little while later the pair came back in talking, passing by Yuffie and Nanaki and clearly in a better mood. The two stopped by them and Ralena apologized for her outburst earlier, then excused herself. Cloud hung out for a few minutes, but didn't sit down, and headed back to his room, Ralena had given him a few things to think about.

The trio sat and continued to talk for a while. "Kinda surprised they didn't _kiss_ and make up." Cid baited.

Aerith laughed, "Not those two, she isn't interested in him like that."

As if on cue Ralena and Vincent appeared, coming down the stairs. Barret waved to them, Ralena returned the gesture, and again Vincent nodded, but otherwise they continued on their way, Vincent never breaking stride, as if he knew he wouldn't enjoy getting involved in their conversation. "Boy ain't they an odd pair?" Barret said as they went out the door.

"Not so sure 'bout that…" Cid replied.

"Come on, those two couldn't be more different."

"On the outside maybe, but those two are running on the same fuel. Shit, ain't you been payin' attention?"

Barret looked at him, confused.

Aerith was surprised at Cid's perception. She probably shouldn't have been, as a pilot and engineer, details were important, she just hadn't expected him to apply that same skill to people, especially given his brash attitude. "Most of us are bound by our hatred of the ShinRa," Aerith explained, "but those two… and Nanaki, have suffered greatly at Hojo's hands. He is the real reason those two are here, the same way Sephiroth is the real reason Cloud is…"

"Nanaki, doesn't seem to be out for revenge…" Cid mused.

Aerith shook her head, "He doesn't hold onto it like they do. To be honest, I'm not sure Ralena is here for revenge either. If Hojo died of a heart attack today, I think she would keep running with us."

"Like she ain't got anywhere else to go…" Barret commented sadly.

There were a few seconds of silence as they let that thought sink in. Then the Cetra stood. "On that note, gentleman, I think I'm going to see about my plans for the evening." She gave them a playful wave and strolled off back towards the stairs.

***

"Sorry for dragging you up here with me," Ralena said as they walked up to get in the gondola. "You don't really have to come along..."

"It was my idea," He shrugged. "I take it you and Cloud worked things out."

She nodded, "We have a better understanding now. As long as we don't talk about Sephiroth, we won't stab each other."

He chuckled but otherwise said nothing as they took their seats.

"Hmm… looks like we're a little too early," she said looking out.

He looked out to the west, the clouds just getting hints of pink. "You still prefer twilight," It wasn't quite a question.

She shrugged, "yeah," she looked out the opposite window, "When the saucer is out of the way, I might be able to make out some stars in the East." For the most part, most of the gondola ride went with only little bits of conversation, enjoying the view and occasionally pointing out something they saw. If they ever came back for a longer period of time Ralena said that she would race Iris on the track.

He watched her eyes sometimes when she wasn't looking, which was a lot. Her eyes sparkled with the bright reflected lights of the saucer. For the most part they were neutral green, senses on, but no active listening or projecting. "Does it take a lot of effort?"

"Hmm?"

"Keeping the lights off," he said, "Is it difficult?"

She shook her head, "Not on a normal day, I'm used to it. I spent most of my time after Midgar just trying to never use it. I didn’t have anyone to really train me, and I was afraid that I was always feeling someone else's emotions. Afraid that any joy I felt would melt away when I was alone. Afraid that I was making people feel how I wanted them to feel and that they would hate me when I wasn't around. So keeping it off is easy when I'm not overwhelmed, even if it feels like I am walking around with a hand over one eye." She looked at him, "It's why I didn't have any close friends at the farm. It wasn't until I got the tip about Nibelheim that realized I should be doing things with it. If only to get better control."

"You seem to have improved a lot," he said, thinking about prank at the Lock-in.

"Nothing like being thrown in the deep end to learn how to swim…"

*******

The pair met up with Nanaki and Yuffie at the arena where they each wanted to squeeze in one more round. Vincent hid his smirk behind his collar and went to the stands to watch. Tifa found him outside the arena's green room after their last fight.

"How did they do?" she asked.

"Yuffie fared the worst, range combatants fighting solo always have it bad. It looks like Nanaki did better than Ralena, but that could have gone the other way with different opponents or materia loadouts."

Seeing the brawler when they came out, Ralena asked Tifa what happened to her plans, "Oh nothing…" she said with a shrug, "Someone else just beat me to it."

"According to the signs, there's gonna be a show in about ten minutes, should we go check it out?" Yuffie suggested.

The opening narration of the play sounded like a fairy tale for children. The Evil Dragon King kidnapped the kingdom's princess, Rosa, and a legendary hero, Alfred, was supposed to show up. The group was just about to consider leaving when Yuffie spoke up. "What the? Is that Cloud?"

"Where?"

"On stage," sure enough, there was their blonde leader wandering across the stage, looking almost lost. With a fake sword and shield

"Oh wow," Tifa said from behind a hand.

A knight walked up to Cloud, well not so much walked as twirled, and said dialog so cheesy that they were sure a 10-year-old could do better. Cloud still seemed lost, so the knight introduced the King, who also spun on-stage. The king said that he knew someone who could help him, on that cue in came a wizard. Apparently, not having seen the wizard Cloud first walked up to the knight, who directed him to the Wizard. The whole time Yuffie and Ralena were doing their best to quiet their laughter. "What would you like to know?" asked the wizard.

Cloud grinned, "What are the Princess's measur-"

Then entered the Evil Dragon King, with the Princess Rosa held in front of him, "How dare you ignore me!"

"Please! Help me!" The princess cried.

"Hey! That's Aerith!" Yuffie exclaimed quietly.

"Now say it, who is your enemy!?" the Dragon King bellowed.

Cloud just stood there a moment and then with a grin pointed to one of the cast members on stage, "The King."

"Cloud! You're ruining the whole play!" Aerith yelled, she stood up and walked up to Cloud and slapped him, he spun like a top and fell to the ground.

"HOW DARE YOU IGNORE ME!!" The Dragon king yelled once again.

"Shut up blabbermouth!" Aerith then charged the dragon who theatrically rolled off stage.

"What an incredibly strong princess!" the narrator covered, "And the New Legendary Hero Rosa lived happily ever after."

"Oh gods, I didn't know I could laugh that hard," Yuffie said as they headed out. Ralena noticed that Tifa hadn't been enjoying the show as much as the rest of them, which she was sure had to do with the guest stars, and the empath now had a good idea of who beat Tifa to her preferred plans for the evening. There wasn't much time to address it in private as the group went to get a quick dinner before heading to the arcade. After a few hours there the group found themselves hanging out in small seating area near the stairs on their floor. Vincent excused himself almost immediately upon their return, Tifa guessed that he had hit his limit for company an hour earlier, but had stuck around for the sake of solidarity.

They gave a small chorus of greeting when Cloud and Aerith walked up, followed moments later by Cait Sith. There was a subtle interaction between the pair and the robot that Ralena never would have noticed if her passive senses hadn't been active to clue her in. There was a brief bit of conversation, the robot and his mog mount hopped off down the hall, while the pair joined the group.

After another few minutes the Redhead excused herself. Tifa and Aerith noted that she went down the hall that led to Vincent's room, rather than her own which was down the opposite direction. "You know what the sad thing is?" Aerith sighed.

"What's That?" Tifa asked, pretty sure she knew the answer.

In a theatrically disappointed motion, Aerith put her chin in her hand, "I know they're just going to talk shop."

Tifa shook her head, "Those two are hopeless."

"Whose hopeless?" Cloud asked, just having overheard the last comment.

"What are we going to do with them?" Tifa asked, as though Cloud hadn't said anything.

Aerith grinned, "Meddle."

"Who are we talking about?" Yuffie asked.

"If you can't figure it out, then you can't help," Tifa teased.

Cloud suddenly realized something... this was girl talk. In which case, now seemed like a good time for him to engage in a tactical retreat.. It would mean abandoning Red XIII here. The least he could do would be to give him an out. "We're going to head out early tomorrow, so I'm going to head to bed. Good night, everyone."

"Good night, oh brave knight Alfred!" Yuffie teased. Cloud went stock still for a moment out of embarrassment, then did the best he could to not visibly run down the hall in retreat.


	13. Echoes of the Ancients

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A quick conversation; The Staff Recruitment Program; Taking care of each other; Outside the temple; Professional Courtesy; Feeling Watched; Personal Sacrifice; A Familiar Feeling; Departure

Early the next morning, there was a knock on the room door. Vincent opened it, finding Ralena standing there. "You guys ready to head out?" she asked.

"As always," Nanaki said, trotting over and smiling proudly, "I'm already done packing."

She grinned at the feline as he walked past, then she strode across the room to look out the window. Vincent closed it behind her as she did. "Cait, before we head down, I have a question…" she asked, as though she were embarrassed.

It hadn't escaped his notice that he was alone in the room, behind a closed door with one of the more close knit pairs of the group. "Go ahead an' ask."

Smiling, she turned and stepped in front of him, "What department are you in that you have access to a toy like this?"

"What?" That caught him by surprise.

Crouching down in front of him she touched one of Cait Sith's ears like she was petting an animal. "A fully articulated, battle ready, remote controlled robot," she said, as though thinking aloud.

"They don't give access to something like that to just anyone." Vincent’s voice came from behind the toy.

If she didn't know any better, she would have sworn the toy cat was sweating. "Look, we figured it out," She said. "The tech alone made Vincent suspicious when we met you. And I'm guessing from the vibe I got off of Cloud and Aerith when you came back in last night, that you came out of the bag."

"Combine that with your poor acting when we ran into the Turks at Gongaga..." Vincent chided.

"So, what's your point?"

"I assume you have some leverage, otherwise Cloud would have outed you." Vincent said coolly.

Cait Sith felt like there was a good cop, bad cop scenario going on here. Though the smile on the woman's face was more unnerving than the man's looming presence, that was just standard Vincent behavior. "What's yer play then?"

"At the moment, nothing really," she said, "We just felt you should know we knew."

Suspicion rose in the operator behind the toy. "Whyyy?"

"It should be obvious." Vincent stated.

"If we get caught, we know it's your fault," Ralena said sweetly.

"Hey now," the feline said, holding up his hands defensively, "I'm only passing on leads about Sephiroth and the Promised Land."

"So that means we'll be meeting up with ShinRa at some point." Vincent was unsurprised, if his job was to kill them he'd just have to interfere in a big enough fight. If capture was the goal, ShinRa troops could have been waiting for them anywhere.

"Figures, they're letting us do all the leg work..." she muttered.

"That’s right! That's all it is!" Cait said defensively.

"How much do they know about us?" Vincent said, after a moment's consideration.

Cait wasn't sure if he meant Avalanche, or the two of them specifically. "After the two of you were captured I decided to be… less verbose in my reports. They know of your connection to Hojo, but not hers." He nodded to Ralena.

"Does Hojo know about us?" There was a tinge of fear in the redhead's voice.

Cait Sith shook his head, "Hojo still hasn't returned from his… sabbatical. Even if he was back, he doesn't even get to know about my reports."

Vincent glanced to Ralena as if to explain, "Secrets hold a lot of power, they're no good if everyone who would be interested knows them." He looked at the feline again. "I assume the Turks get the reports. When we saw them outside Gongaga, one of them mentioned wanted to fight both of us 'new ones'."

"Speaking of secrets," Cait said, feeling there was no reason he couldn't at least ask. "I looked into Nibelheim before. There's no security footage that shows what you two said you saw."

"I doubt you went in person," Vincent said blandly, "There are many things hidden in that basement. I should know."

There was several seconds of silence when both sides waited for the other to spill more information.

Ralena broke the tension by patting Cait Sith on the head. "I like you Cait Sith, I really do. But before we go back out and pretend nothing is wrong, I have a warning for you." Her eyes glowed a vibrant green to punctuate her point, "If you send any of us back to Hojo, I will find you and I will turn you into a quivering mass of fear and misery before ever laying a finger in you."

The cat toy stared wide eyed back at her.

Her eyes dimmed and she smiled again. "Just something to think about," she said in a chipper tone, standing to leave. "See you downstairs."

***

Reeve gulped. He'd gotten a good idea of what Ralena was capable of when she was just messing around. Before now, he thought Valentine would have been the one to fear the most. If it came to it, the former Turk would just shoot him. But now the empath had gotten into his head all the horrifying possibilities those powers entailed.

He had told them the truth, as far as he was concerned. That didn't mean Avalanche wouldn't get captured at some point. His unit did have a tracker in it after all. ShinRa could track them down any time they came near a cell tower, which was almost everywhere.

At this rate he really wasn't sure how much longer his status as a spy would remain secret, half the team knew it seemed… well most didn't know about Marlene. It wasn't like the girl was really in trouble. He just had a small doll capable of two way communication keeping her company. But a well-timed bit of audio made it seem worse than it was.

******

They left the room and headed towards the conference room where they would be meeting Cloud and the others for breakfast. Vincent turned to her and asked, "Can you really do that?"

"No idea." Ralena shrugged with a smile, "Next time we fight some ShinRa troops I should give it a try."

He grinned behind his collar, but said nothing.

Everyone was gathered around the table and eating breakfast within minutes of the two arriving. Vincent fetched himself and Ralena a pair of muffins, while she got their coffee. Between Aerith and Tifa, the pair's symbiotic movements were observed and ardently cataloged.

When Cait Sith said he knew which temple the keystone about was for, half the group was cheered by the news. Aerith and Cloud seemed suspicious, while Ralena and Vincent covertly inspected their respective blueberry muffins. Neither SOLDIER or Cetra mentioned anything, but Vincent could see signs of anxiety in their body language. They agreed that all of them would set out as a whole towards the Temple. There was little point in splitting up to check out the other locations as they only had one keystone.

Within the hour they were out of the Saucer and before lunchtime they were riding the Tiny Bronco down the coast, Ralena and Iris alongside. They pushed on into dusk, and stayed at a small fishing town, cramped into a small guest hut. On the way there Cait Sith remained offline, likely his operator was busy catching up on real life…

***

He'd finally found it, and now he wished he hadn't.

Like with Vincent, Reeve hadn't originally gone back far enough to find Ralena's information. He looked at the Subject Transfer Order, the young face of a child with dark red hair looked at him, fear and apprehension on her face. An orphan from the sector 6 slums, as she had said. Still no last name, she either hadn't known it, or wouldn't tell them when they cared.

**From**: Staff Recruitment Program  
**To**: Science Department  
**Requestor**: Professor Hojo  
**Purpose**: Testing for participation in new research project

He scoffed, "participation" implied that the new subjects would have been willing. She was on a list of twenty others, he hadn't pulled their info, just the list. He imagined, that if he bothered to look, the others either were transferred back, or had never come out.

The Staff Recruitment Program was a politically correct name for the it because "Picking up street rats and raising them according to our ideals to be perfectly loyal employees" was just too long.

Six years old. She was six years old when she got handed over to Hojo. She was saved five years ago, before Nibelheim. If his math was right she was a 'project' of Hojo's for about nine years, and was probably twenty or twenty-one years old now. He couldn't officially get access to the project files. He was damn sure that he didn't want to. Knowing what he already did was likely to cause him some restless nights, he couldn't imagine what knowing details would do.

Now he had a better understanding of her. It was sad that this little scrap of paper gave him so much insight into her character. Having been one of Hojo's projects for so long, he was surprised she looked so normal, with shifting Mako eyes and a numeral tattoo the only outward sign of her captivity. Hell, even her behavior seemed normal on the outside, a little agoraphobia and the occasional mood swing aside. There were probably other triggers for her that they hadn't run into yet.

Reeve was beginning to understand Avalanche better with every piece of the puzzle he had found. No wonder they were so crazy. No wonder they had no issue putting their lives on the line. No wonder they would go on this insane and pointless expedition and expect to win.

They were all broken.

For some of them, the signs were obvious, Barret's gun arm, Vincent's transformations. Those were the physical signs of much more insidious trauma. Red XIII... Ok, so he had earned those battle scars proudly. Red XIII might not have been broken, he just thought differently as a being that was not human and being raised in a warrior culture.

Aerith grew up under surveillance and could hear voices no one else could. On top of that she had an oddly cordial relationship with the Turks who were assigned to watch her for most of her life.

Tifa and Cloud had their entire hometown burned down and slaughtered while they were there. He shuddered, the others thought the whole population was killed, but that wasn't true. Reeve had looked into the incident, every survivor had been roundup and he suspected that they were some of the robed figures that once littered the streets of Nibelheim. They'd recently started leaving, acting with purpose. There was also the fact that Cloud thought he had been in SOLDIER, even though his name never appeared in the rosters.

Yuffie had grown up during the Wutai war. While she seemed like a normal teenage girl in manner, most teenage girls didn't run off to become a bandit with such a single minded focus on gathering materia. There had to be something else, whether trauma or upbringing that skewed her world view.

The most normal among them was probably Cid. He was a bitter, pissed off man. The ShinRa presented his dreams to him, then tore them away and ripped them to shreds like so much wet tissue paper. He made a lot of sense.

Hell, Cid was probably better off than himself. After all, Reeve was a grown man, with a successful career, and he was playing hero through a remote controlled toy.

He picked out the file he had on Nibelheim again.

He was certain that Vincent and Ralena were hiding something. The pair had let something slip in the meeting at the Saucer. Well, not slip exactly, they wanted the others to have the information, but not how they got it. There was no way there were security cameras within that section of the Mako reactor, not a room with the entry to Jenova and the Mako condensing pods. Top secret experiments usually didn't have networked recording devices pointed at them... if any. Especially when it was long term storage where no activity was really going on. There were things they knew that, as far as he could tell, they shouldn’t have been able to find out, at least not via "archive footage" as Vincent had called it. He was sure the key to it lie with the redhead, judging by their silent exchanges before her blowout with Cloud.

That was interesting too… she wanted to _help_ Sephiroth, to save him. Though it didn't look like she had much hope. Vincent told them Sephiroth had rescued her from Hojo. He certainly wasn't going to write that information down anywhere, but it was certainly worth keeping in mind.

***

"Morning," Tifa said coming up to the redhead in the small kitchen of the guest house in the morning. About half of them were awake already, Cloud and Vincent had stepped out to the porch so that they had the room to maintenance their weapons. Aerith had also gone outside, likely to do her morning communing with the planet.

"Morning," the redhead replied, as she went about making the coffee.

"I was wondering," The brunette asked conversationally, "how do you like your coffee?"

"huh? Oh, just with some milk or cream. Ma and Pa always made it strong, so I got used to that."

"I can tell," Tifa smirked, looking at the hefty scoops of grounds the woman had put into the percolator.

The redhead grinned back, sheepishly removing about half a scoop from the filter, "Like a lot of things I didn't realize it was different until much later. I think regular coffee may as well be tea."

"Cloud likes so much milk in sugar in his that it barely counts as coffee anymore," Tifa chuckled. "What about Vincent? How's he like his coffee?"

Ralena shrugged, assuming that Tifa was just planning for future breakfast orders. "Pretty simple for him, strong, dark, two sugars… but not as strong as I like it."

"You two know each other really pretty well, don't you?"

She shrugged, "As well as we can in…" she stopped then looked up in thought, clearly doing calculations in her head. A short sound escaped her lips, "huh."

"What?" Tifa asked.

"Hard to believe it's barely over a month since I met him." She said, moving to check the bacon on the stove. "Seems like we've known each other longer than that."

***

Outside, Aerith walked back up to the building, holding her shoes in her hands, enjoying the feeling of her bare feet in the grass. She liked this place, it was a little primitive, never having gotten any kind of Mako power, but the people were kind and the planet was at peace here. She was too much of a city girl to want to live here, but it was very pleasant for the short stay.

She smiled and waved at the two men on the porch. Vincent gave a nod and Cloud raised a hand in return, but otherwise they went back to their work.

She cocked her head to one side as she realized what Vincent was working on. His guns were off to one side, and he had a slim sword across his lap. "Are you cleaning Ralena's blades too?"

Red eyes flicked up to her, then back to the item in question. "She wanted to make breakfast, it's a fair trade and not much more work."

Aerith smiled, then tried not to laugh as her gaze trailed over to Cloud. The huge surface area of his sword obviously required more time. Vincent could probably take care of Yuffie and Cid's blades as well and still have time to eat breakfast before Cloud was done. "Did you do that often?"

There was a subtle shake of his head, "It hadn't come up yet." He held up the blade and twisted it, checking his work before flipping it over, "But we take care of each other."

She tried not to look too pleased at the wording he used. "Everyone should be so lucky and have a partner like that." This earned her looks from both men. Both trying to determine the subtext of her statement and if she was directing it at the other man. Her smile widened, "I'll see if Cid is up and if he wants help keeping the local kids off of the plane."

She walked between them and through the door. Their eyes followed her then they turned back to looked at each other. Cloud just shrugged, turned the buster sword over and started on the other side.

***

With the calm weather they made it near Gongaga the next day and decided to camp out near the beach to save the extra travel time in the morning. Ralena let her chocobo range, deciding to ride with the others and give Iris a break. Besides, the bird was starting to show odd behavior around Cloud again and she thought a bit of distance would probably mitigate that.

Setting out at dawn, they reached the island of the Temple of the Ancient's before lunch. Knowing that ShinRa was probably ahead of them, Cloud pushed for them to continue on to the temple right away.

They parked the Tiny Bronco and hid it under foliage and camouflage netting, and set off into the undergrowth. The temple rose up out of the Jungle, a massive version of the structure they had seen outside of Gongaga. A dry moat surrounded the structure with a surprisingly intact rope bridge across it.

"Something's there," Yuffie muttered, pointing to black shape lying near the bushes.

Nanaki sniffed the air and crept closer, "It smells similar to Sephiroth." The figure was not moving.

"I think it's dead," Vincent said, stepping up alongside the cat. After a moment the two strode forward and he rolled it over with his boot, and the black robe fell away. There was a gasp from someone behind him, as they took in the figure. White hair, pale skin with blotches of discoloration. His facial features were strange, as though he had once had another face, but parts of it were trying to change, trying to become more refined. He had a crooked jawline and one eyebrow didn’t match the other. Reaching down with his rifle, Vincent moved the cloak and turned the left arm, Hojo's preferred location for labeling his subjects. "Four," he said aloud. He looked back to Cloud, "We might want to leave some people outside, in case there are more."

Cloud gave him a doubtful look, "Do you think they're a threat?" This one didn't seem to have any wounds on it. It looked like it had just fallen over and died.

"No, but what I think does not always match reality."

Cloud brushed the back of his head with his hand in thought, "I guess…"

"We also mustn't forget that the ShinRa could be tailing us," Vincent reminded.

He didn't miss the momentary glance that Cloud shot in Cait Sith's direction. "True… Barret, can you be in charge out here?" He received a nod from the man. Cloud was about to give more orders when a pink clad figure walked passed him.

Aerith approached the temple with a mixture of awe and a feeling of coming home. Slowly walking over as if under a spell. "This is the Temple of the Ancients…" She stepped out onto the bridge reaching for it with her heart. This wasn't just a matter of her heritage, she could _feel_ them. They were here. "I… I feel it... The knowledge of the Ancients... floating…" Voices welcomed her. She kneeled down on the bridge, tilting her head as if listening to voices beneath her. "You could become one with the Planet, but you're stopping it with the strength of will. Why?" Answers came, many at once, hard to separate. "For the future? For us?"

"What are they saying?" Cloud asked, coming up behind her.

She didn't seem to hear him. Standing up, she shook her head, taking a few more steps forward. "You're uneasy... But happy? Because_ I'm_ here?" The others watched her, concerned, but feeling that this was not the time to interfere. "I'm sorry... I don't understand." She turned back to Cloud who still stood on the bridge. "I want to go inside."

He didn't see the point in wasting anymore time, especially since the ShinRa had a head start. He was surprised he hadn't seen any evidence of them yet. Had they already left? They already had the keystone. Were they waiting on something else? "Vincent, Ralena, you come in with us, everyone else stand guard for ShinRa or more of those cloaked… people."

They started forward and were nearly to the stairs before Vincent turned back when he heard the footsteps behind him stop abruptly "Ralena?"

She was standing at the end of the bridge just outside the gateway, eyes ablaze even in the daylight. She stared at the structure, effort showing on her face. Yuffie looked on from the other side of the bridge. "You ok?" the girl called.

"I… I can't go in there." She swallowed hard, "It's.. I can't." She could feel it, those ancient spirits clinging to the world, living within those walls. She felt the cautious happiness and worry that Aerith had spoken of, but there was so much more. Going in there would be the difference between seeing a storm outside and trying to walk through it. It would be impossible for her to function in there, she was sure of it. It would be worse than ShinRa Manor, that place had held traces, echoes. Here she could hear spirits whispering now, but not to her, it was like they were still alive, but memories at the same time. It assaulted both aspects of her senses at once.

Vincent walked back to her, she was still staring at the structure. He put his gauntleted hand on her shoulder. "Ralena? Are you here?"

That caught her attention and she looked in his eyes, trepidation was evident in her green orbs. "They're all whispering at once."

"You can hear them?" Aerith asked, stepping up behind Vincent with Cloud. She'd lived her whole life with no one else hearing what she could.

She nodded, "But I can't understand them, it's like a dead language to me." She brought a hand up to her head, unlike Aerith, the experience seemed to cause her pain. "All of the whispers are so… loud together."

"Don't push yourself, stay out here," Cloud said gently. He had hoped to get more time seeing the fencer in action, but this clearly wasn't the time for it. He called back over the moat, "Nanaki, can you switch with Ralena?"

"Certainly," the feline said, trotting across the bridge.

"Will you be alright?" Vincent asked her, concerned.

She nodded, panting out a reply. "It wasn't bad until I crossed the moat. Once I'm back across the bridge… I should be good." Vincent escorted her back across the bridge, and once he saw her begin to show signs of recovery he moved back to join the others.

***

He sat there, trying to slow his breathing and his heart rate. If he could manage it, maybe he wouldn't bleed to death before Elena came back for his pickup this evening. The cut across his stomach was bad, he was pretty sure his two lower ribs were nicked too. Damn if Sephiroth's blade wasn't sharp.

He had already managed to drag himself back up to the entry hall, which was easier than he had expected. Whatever sorcery this place held that made it hard to find your way in seemed happy to let you leave.

A shadow covered the doorway, he looked up.

"Tseng?" A familiar female voice said. The daylight behind haloed her form. He was under no illusions that it was some benevolent spirit, no such being would come for someone like him.

It was followed by a male voice dripping with unhappy surprise. "Of the Turks?"

Her features became evident to him as she approached. Well, if it wasn't the girl herself. "Hello… Aerith. It seems I've been had."

"What are you talking about?" She asked.

"It's not the Promised Land… that Sephiroth is searching for-"

"He's inside!?"

SOLDIERs were so impatient, Cloud was a lot like Zack that way. "Why not see for yourself?" A wave a nausea came over him, he slammed a fist on the floor to try to regain focus. Two others were in the room too, but he couldn't quite make them out. "Damn," he muttered, "I never should have let Aerith go… That's when my bad luck… started." Don't cough, he told himself, that will only aggravate the injury. "Not surprising, the old president was wrong."

"The Promised Land isn't like what you imagined," Aerith said. She had a bitter, sad, confused look on her face, like someone who found out a family member they didn't like had died. "ShinRa won’t win… And I'm not going to help." She turned away from him and the others, going to stand out of his view between two pillars.

"Pretty harsh," he got out, "Sounds like something… you'd say." He didn't blame her, since she was a child he had played the villain for her. Only in fairy tales did the heroes save those they hated when they found them dying. Painfully slowly he reached into his jacket, pulling out something and offering it to Cloud, "The Keystone… place it on… the altar."

Cloud moved forward and looked upon the Turk with a mixed expression, annoyance, pity, gratitude, anger. He took the stone, then nodded to him, saying nothing. In that way Cloud was very unlike Zack. Tseng let the arm fall limply once relieved of its burden. As the would-be SOLDIER walked over to Aerith, Tseng was surprised that someone else approached and crouched in front of him.

He almost smiled as he recognized Valentine who he'd let go in Aerith's own church. "Where's your date?"

"Will you live?" The red eyed man asked, ignoring his question.

"Depends… on when help arrives." A soft glow of green light began to emanate from the man's hands. "Don't bother," Tseng got out. "The Masamune, inhibits magical healing." He winced, "You'll need what mana you have for the creatures inside."

Valentine continued anyway, "It should stem the bleeding until practical methods can be employed," the red clad man said, pulling bandages out from the recesses of his cloak.

"heh, you sound like Veld," Tseng said, reaching out for the offering. "You'd best get going, your comrades are waiting."

The former Turk nodded and stood, leaving him sitting against the wall of the chamber. "Why'd you give him that?" He heard Cloud ask bitterly, as he was about to unlock the path.

"Professional courtesy," was the banal reply.

Tseng almost grinned as they disappeared into the floor. Valentine had given him a chance, a Turk could do a lot with a chance. Maybe it was even good enough for him to survive…

***

For the most part, once they were inside the temple, Aerith was leading them. Sometimes only to point to the next doorway, which they had to figure out how to get to. This was no simple structure of straight hallways, pillars and stairs. It was a maze of sandstone and magic. In the first area was like walking through a dream, doorways let out to other platforms up to fifty feet away. They weren't sure how deep underground this place went, but Vincent was convinced it should not fit in the space it was supposed to occupy.

Vincent could see what Ralena had meant about the place. He could feel the Others inside of him stirring, reacting to the presence of the Cetra spirits here. Aerith had said that the spirits of the ancients here had not returned to the planet, in order to act as keepers of some kind. He wondered if the beings within him were kindred to them in a way. Once living things that should have returned to the planet, but were unable to go, thanks to being bound to him. The thought made him feel like a walking graveyard.

Nanaki seemed to be detecting something as well. His ears kept twitching around and his nostrils flared on occasion. He said that the temple smelled like Cosmo Canyon at first, and despite whatever he perceived, he did not seem disturbed by the place.

Cloud seemed the least affected, Vincent found himself wondering if it had to do with his condition, whatever that was. There wasn't a normal person among them, if Cid or Barret were here for comparison it would have been informative.

He shook the thoughts away, as his father's son and a Turk, he had a habit of collecting far more information than was necessary. It usually proved useful, tidbits that helped to pull a puzzle together later. Now was the time to gather information, not ponder on what it meant. "Does anyone else feel strange?" Vincent asked, holstering in his gun after a fight. Given Tseng’s warning, there were less monsters than he anticipated. "Other than Aerith," he clarified.

"Oh good," Cloud said his shoulders relaxing a little, "It's not just me."

"Are you ok?" Aerith asked the two of them, concerned.

"It's not bad," Cloud assured her, "I feel like..." he took a moment to think, then smiled, "I feel like a bodyguard. Like they don't care for me, but I'm being tolerated. How about you?"

Vincent nodded, a non-specific gesture they would take as agreement. That was not at all how he felt. "I also feel watched." He felt like a curiosity, like he was being looked upon as an exotic zoo animal walking calmly down the street. Speaking of, "Nanaki, what about you?" He asked.

The feline shook his head, "Not the same for me. I can almost perceive them. For a moment, I will smell or hear something from where no one is. It is always less than a second, not enough time for me to make anything out."

Vincent took in this information, another factor in how different Nanaki was from a human. Despite the fact that he was just trying to collect details he kept finding himself wondering what it all meant.

***

The group outside had little to do. Despite earlier concerns, there appeared to be no sign of ShinRa showing up. Ralena eyed Cait Sith and wondered if the company even needed to send anyone down. After all Avalanche was doing the leg work, as long as he got the information and passed it on then there would be no reason to even come to the temple, never mind wasting resources on attacking them. Though she supposed that ShinRa had so many people they thought they could just throw them away.

About once an hour they did a patrol around the building, fortunately this jungle wasn't crawling with animals that could _Frog_ you so it was more pleasant than their previous trek to an ancient ruin. It was on their third patrol around, while Ralena was butchering a monster they had fought that she deemed edible when Cait Sith suddenly mentioned that he had to go into the temple.

Naturally this was met with some confusion. "Sorry," he said, "I've been listening to the others this whole time. Cloud is carrying a mic for me, you know, in case they needed help." It would be more accurate to say that Cloud was bugged, but it was technically true. "There's a puzzle they'll need my help with. "

"Why you?" Barret asked, somewhat suspicious.

"Apparently as you work on the puzzle, the temple shrinks, with the person inside it. You'll have to say goodbye to this handsome looking bod," he said shaking his head dramatically.

"But what about you?" Yuffie asked, "I mean, won't that basically kill you?"

"Yes and no," the faux feline said, "I suspected there might be a trick like this, so Cait Sith number two isn't too far away. Just don't forget about this one when he comes along."

"Well… if you're sure," Barret said a little reluctantly, "Let's get back around to the front then."

Everyone made quick goodbyes to the cat. Ralena wasn't exactly cold, but she had trouble connecting with something she couldn't feel. It was a robot body after all, what was the person on the other end really sacrificing? He even said another Cait Sith would be along shortly.

After Cait Sith disappeared into the temple, Barret took stock of the time. With the day being late, and knowing they would want to leave as soon as possible, Barret sent Cid, Ralena and Yuffie back to the plane to prep it for leaving, while he waited for the others with Tifa.

It was an hour from sunset when the rest of Avalanche came out of the jungle. Cloud was unconscious, being carried between Barret and Vincent. Cid was the first one to speak, "What the hell happened to him?"

"Sephiroth showed up," Nanaki said grimly.

"Is Cloud ok?" Yuffie asked running over. Aside from Aerith, Yuffie was second in the team to act as medic. Her martial art's training had not included many pulled punches and everyone at the pagoda had their fair share of basic medical training as far as injuries went.

The expressions of their comrades did not bode well for the blonde man. "Physically he is uninjured." Vincent said eventually.

"What about the…" The question died on Yuffie's lips as Barret shook his head.

"He got that too…"

"Well… let's get him secured in the Bronco." Cid sighed, not sure what else to do, "Gongaga's nearly 6 hours from here, and I don't think there's anywhere closer to sleep safely."

When they were on approach to Gongaga, Ralena summoned Iris so that by the time they parked it they could transport their unconscious friend more easily. Once Cloud was laid down in one of the rooms, the group shuffled about unsure of what to do beyond claiming rooms and worrying. After a short while, Ralena found herself in the room with Cloud, Tifa and Aerith. She reached a hand out towards his forehead.

"What are you-" Tifa cut herself off as the woman turned to look at her.

The redhead looked between the two women, both of whom were reluctant to leave the SOLDIER's side. "I want to see what he's feeling… is that ok?"

"Do you think it will help him?" Aerith asked.

Ralena swallowed, "I think it will help _us_ help him." They nodded for her to continue, her fingers made contact with his skin and her eyes turned green.

She probably should have sat down first.

When she evened out later, she would openly scold herself in front of the others. She should have known that any mental trauma strong enough to leave a grown man unconscious for hours would knock her on her ass.

Tifa caught her and helped her into a chair. "Are you alright?"

Ralena's eyes stared off into nothing long enough that Aerith was about to call Vincent in. "Sorry," she said, eyes dimming. "He's.. He's just so lost, and scared…" It had taken her time to process.

"Scared of what?" Tifa asked.

The empath shook her head, "It doesn't work like that, I don't know the thoughts behind the emotions."

"Himself." The other two turned at the quiet voice. Aerith was still standing by the door looking at Cloud with a strange sense of aimlessness. "He's afraid of himself."

"Why?" the brawler asked.

Aerith closed her eyes and let out a long tired sigh, before turning her gaze back to the others. "Sephiroth had some kind of influence over Cloud… He didn't even really attack. Cloud..." There were several seconds where they waited for her to continue. "We should probably discuss it with everyone at once," she said opening the door further, "Before they turn in."

On her way out Ralena cast her eyes at the limp form of her fellow warrior. He was so lost and frightened, but she also sensed a strange undertone to his emotions that she couldn’t identify. That last piece worried her, it didn't seem normal and she could swear she felt it before.

****

The recap of the events at the temple was heavy with the weight of its implications. There was relatively little to tell, at least as far as the important details went.

The spirits of the temple had shown them that Sephiroth was not after the Promised Land, but the Black Materia. An object that, according to the Ancients was "the ultimate black magic." Something that could be used to summon Meteor.

When they found the room from the vision, where murals depicted the summoning of meteor, they also found Sephiroth… after a fashion. Red XIII was not sure that it was physically him, he believed it to be a projection as his form and outline did not match up. Sephiroth told them that he intended to slam Meteor into the planet, destroy the bulk of humanity in one swift blow, and use the planet's accumulated energy at the impact site to become a god. When asked why he would do that, he had smiled cruelly, but gave no answer. It sounded like he was on the same mad mission as five years ago.

According to Aerith, even though he had the Black Materia, Sephiroth still needed to find the Promised Land. The energy required to Summon Meteor could not be accomplished by a single being alone. He had to be somewhere that was abundant with the planet's energy such as the mythical place they sought.

After Cait Sith had solved the Ancient's puzzle, Aerith and Cloud had climbed down into the crater where the temple had once been, to pick up the Black Materia at the bottom. Sephiroth had shown up, and along with him a flock of flying creatures that he had pulled in to attack the others who had been waiting up top. While thy fought off the creatures, Sephiroth had jumped down into the pit, and barely saying anything, got Cloud to hand him the materia he needed to end the world.

"It looked like he was moving through mud," Aerith said quietly, "Like he was trying to stop his body from moving…"

Vincent noted everyone's reactions. Cid and Barret looked like they were angry, but not sure at what. Yuffie seemed unsure of what to think, Nanaki's expression was grim, and Cait Sith seemed exasperated. Tifa and Aerith looked the most worried, he was certain that this was related to the Cloud's mental lapses.

He studied Ralena's haunted expression, unlike normal, she sat on the outside of the group. Listening, but clearly also working through something else. Near the end Vincent caught her attention and a little while after the others turned in she met him outside. They walked towards the stable a few buildings down, but didn't go in. There were few artificial lights on the streets of Gongaga and a nearby gas lamp post cast everything in a shade of orange.

"What's wrong?" He asked quietly.

She didn't meet his eye and wrapped her arms around herself, "I touched Cloud to see what he was going through…. It's really bad but… it's also familiar."

"Familiar?"

Stumbling through it, she explained what she had felt, paying particular attention to the strange undercurrent. This emotional cocktail was different proportions of the same ingredients of what she had felt before… in the Nibelheim basement. She had no doubts what this meant.

Cloud was on his way to going mad.

"I'm inclined to agree," Vincent said gravely. He told the empath about Cloud occasionally starring off oddly, and Tifa's obvious concerns over his health. They hadn't mentioned it in the debrief so he told her about Cloud's episode inside the Temple. After Sephiroth left them in the mural room. Cloud had giggled about the Black Materia and calling Meteor. Aerith had called out to him and he verbally reminded himself of his own name. Cloud had then muttered something about finding his path and spasmed before acting as though nothing had happened. Aerith downplayed the lapse to Cloud, not wanting to worry him. But Vincent and Nanaki had shared a glance and doubts about that course of action.

"Do you think there's enough time to turn this around?"

"It depends," Vincent said, "I would guess that Sephiroth is a factor in his condition or he is at least using it against Cloud. The more we see Sephiroth, the faster I imagine Cloud's state will deteriorate."

She looked down the street towards the Inn, "I... I think we need to tell the others why I know these things. We can't share this without explaining where it came from."

"No," Vincent said quickly, "We can't risk that getting back to the ShinRa." He had several firm ideas about how they would try to use her if they found out.

Her lips set in a tight line and she glared at him as she thought about protesting. She hated hiding these things from people it affected, but revealing it meant someone she didn't trust would find out. She let out a frustrated sigh and forced herself to think instead of snapping at Vincent about it. Though he looked surprised that she was annoyed at him. "What about just one person?" She said after a minute.

He considered that, "Who?"

"Tifa," Ralena said, "I talked to her at the Saucer, she said that Cloud's memories are jumbled with Zack for some reason. She's preparing to help him with whatever it is he's dealing with, she just not sure when that will be. Or even how to go about it." It wasn’t like any of them were psychologists, and Tifa's fear of making everything worse prevented her from acting. "I'd like to tell Aerith too, but if you're only going to give me one…"

Vincent thought a moment, remembering his own conversation with Tifa. "_Will you help me keep an eye on him?_" she had asked for his help, and he had agreed. In truth Vincent was ill equipped in this scenario to do much more than observe, report, and call him out if Cloud made a bad call. Tifa would be the one to act, and if they could give her more information it could only benefit Cloud. "For now, just Tifa may be best," he said. "We'll need to talk to her alone. I trust you can manage some way for us to take her aside that won't seem suspicious."

****

It was the early hours of the morning, well before the sun was up. Quietly, she made her way down the stairs, a pack over her shoulders and heart heavy in her chest. Her feet moved reluctantly forward across the lobby.

She had learned so many things in the temple. The ancient Cetra spirits had been passing her knowledge the entire time she had walked its halls. It was taking time for her to understand all of it, to decode it. Spells and techniques she could use to help her on her journey were already clear in her mind. She was sure a few of those spirits were clinging to her now, guiding her along the path she had to take. She hoped one of them was her mother, but she likely wouldn't know for sure until she took the time to sleep later.

"You're going." It was a statement, not a question.

Aerith stopped at the voice. Clearly she hadn't expected anyone else to be up. "You're awake…"

A lamp turned on and Vincent stood from the chair he was sitting in by the window. It didn't seem like he had been waiting for her, he wasn't wearing his cloak and his jacket was unbuttoned.

"Are you going to stop me?"

Crimson eyes looked into hers, "I want to, but I don't think I should."

She nodded, "I feel the same about staying. There is something only I can do, as the last of the Ancients, the Cetra. They told me in the temple."

She held his gaze, and he understood. "We can't go with you."

She shook her head, "There is something within Cloud, something Sephiroth can reach in and twist." A pained expression came over her face, "It would be too much of a risk, no matter how much I want to stay beside him." A few tears fell from the woman's eyes, and she wiped them away.

He stood and walked over to her, putting a hand on her shoulder. "When I was in your position before, what I wanted and what I should do aligned. I didn't act on either and now I am here. I didn't stop Hojo from putting Jenova Cells into an unborn Sephiroth." Aerith's eyes looked up and met his. "I will not stop you from trying to fix the problem I let happen. I won't say anything, do what you need to do."

She looked at him with a maternal expression, one usually reserved for Yuffie, "You feel more blame than you should," she whispered. Then for a moment she looked away, like she had many times within the temple. Hearing something he couldn't. "I almost forgot, I have a message for you."

His head tilted slightly.

"The Others inside you are not evil. They are the sword, the bullet, the bomb. They may be destructive and possess their own will, but you share the same heart. They are from the Lifestream, the same as us. Even the strongest of them." Her expression became more serious, "But he is a tornado, a hurricane you will have to learn how to weather before you can direct him."

He stepped back at her mention of Chaos, looking down at the ground. "I don't know if that helps me."

She shrugged, "It is what the Ancients told me." She sighed and looked longingly back at the stairs that would take her back to her room. She was tempted to ask him to tell them 'goodbye' for her. But that would just result in more trouble for him than he needed. She turned and stopped as his voice interrupted her one more time.

"Take Iris," he said quietly. She looked back at him. "You'll need the head start."

She nodded holding back her tears, "Goodbye Vincent, take care of them for me."

They both felt the weight of the moment. Both were too experienced in how cruel fate could be. Red and green eyes met and felt that these would be the last words they would ever speak to each other. "I'll do my best."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: In the original game, the third party member is just running around at the top of the crater for the temple, so what would keep them busy…  
**Sephiroth:** TRAIN TO ZONE!  
**Avalanche:** DAMMIT!


	14. Chasing the Ancients

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gone; A toast; Looking for Direction; Standby; Control; I'm With You; Restless nights; Ancient City Streets; Setting the stage

Aerith was gone.

The Innkeeper at Gongaga knew that this was the reason that chaos was loose in his small lobby. It had been stated in multiple ways as the various members of the group had come together that morning. He did his best to stay out of their way. The last time they had been through they gave him no trouble, but now they were in disarray.

They showed up late last night with one among them unconscious and now another one of them had skipped out before sunrise while almost everyone else was asleep. The redhead came back in from the outside. "It looks like she took Iris from the stable..."

"She probably doesn't want to be found," the large, red lion-wolf creature said.

"No shit," This from the large man with the gun attached to his arm, "Otherwise she wouldn't have left in the middle of the night!"

"Yelling won't do us any good Barret," the brunette woman chided. She looked like she hadn't slept at all. "I can't believe I actually thought she was going to go to sleep…"

The blonde man with the bomber jacket tied around his waist pulled out a cigarette clearly dying to light it in the non-smoking lobby. "Why don't some of us stay here, and everyone else split up to look for her?" He suggested, "We'll start from the stable, we can split up once we lose the trail." There were a few nods of agreement.

"So who's staying?" Asked the youngest among them, a Wutaian girl.

"I'll stay" said the long haired woman. That was probably for the best, she certainly needed the rest.

The large man, Barret, spoke next, "Me too." He clearly had some paternal attitude towards the woman and seemed to want to take care of her.

"We better go before the trail is lost," the lion-beast said standing, "Call us if Cloud wakes up."

All but the two who agreed to stay walked out. The redhead casting a suspicious glare at the robotic cat, but the dark man behind her just shook his head, which earned him a confused look.

"I just don't understand why she would leave..." The brunette said to the large man after the room went quiet.

"I dunno," he replied, before continuing in a softer voice. "One thing I do know is that you need some rest, Tifa. Go on and sleep a bit, I'll sit with Cloud and come get ya if he starts to wake up."

***

Rufus had called the Turks into his office. It was odd for him to do it so close to the end of the work day, he knew how the senior Turks adhered to the doctrine of work hours. When they got there they were again surprised to not find him sitting behind his desk, that was his position of power, where he stood when he gave orders. This time he was sitting off to the side in the lounge area where two sofas and a club chair surrounded a coffee table.

"Come and sit," he said. His voice still had an edge of command, the man would never be able to get rid of that, but there was an undertone to it that they hadn't heard before. He was sitting in the middle chair, his back to them.

The three looked at each other, and moved to do as they had been instructed. Rude sat next to Elena and Reno sat opposite them. It didn't escape their notice that there were four rocks glasses and two bottles of alcohol in an ice bucket on the table.

"I couldn't remember which was his favorite," Rufus said solemnly, "Reno, if you would."

"Sure thing, boss." He said, catching on. He grabbed the more potent of the two drinks. "He liked them both, but for a moment like this, I think he would prefer this one." He started to pour about a shot's worth into each glass, "Dependin' on how long you'll put up with us, we can get into the other one too." He passed Rufus his glass first.

The blonde swept some of his hair out of his face before taking the drink. "I'm afraid I won't have the time," their boss said bitterly, "but you can take it with you when you leave."

Glasses distributed, Rufus held up his glass. "Tseng was one of the most dedicated and loyal men I had ever known. Not just to me, or the company, but to you, to his people. As long as we live, he will never be forgotten." They raised their glasses in silence and each took a drink.

Like the consummate professionals they were, Rude and Reno knocked the whole thing back. Elena tried her best not to wince as the little bit she managed to drink burned down her throat. Rufus seemed to land in the middle, drinking about half and giving an appraising look to the glass. Reno was already pouring seconds for himself and Rude.

"To be fair," Rude said after a second, "Tseng's favorite drink requires a blender, pineapple, a coconut shell and an umbrella."

There was a stare from the two blondes in the room. Then Rufus chuckled, "In that case get yourselves a round of those and a nice dinner here after you leave, expense it."

"We got a limit?" Reno asked with a wry grin.

Rufus gave him a level gaze, "Use Rude's judgement on that." Reno barked out a laugh. That was the kind of thing Tseng would have said to them. "Unfortunately, we don't have the luxury of letting you take off much time. Too many pieces are moving. I can afford to give you tonight and the morning, I'll have new assignments for you in the afternoon."

"We understand, boss." They sat back for a minute, Elena staring down into her glass. After a bit Reno leaned back, and tilted his head up as though looking at the ceiling. "Hey Rude, remember when Tseng came back from Modeoheim with Zack?"

A smirk graced the bald man's lips, "He said he didn't feel warm for over a week."

"I think he was wearing his thermal underoos for the next month." The mental image came to the group, of a serious Tseng in cartoonish, full body, red long johns and laughter filled the air.

This led to a round of brief stories and comments from the men, who had known Tseng for years. Chuckles and laughter followed until suddenly Elena almost slammed her drink down on the table, "Why are you all laughing!? Tseng is dead!" She lifted her head, eyes burning and red rimmed.

Reno and Rude had expected this, it was no wonder she was taking it hard. Yesterday, she had returned to the Temple for the designated pickup window for Tseng, only to find the entire building gone. There was evidence that Avalanche had been there, and their source confirmed it, telling them that Tseng he had seen him "gravely injured" and that he "was not captured." The senior Turks did not interpret the vague report the same way she had.

Reno sighed, not his usual one of exasperation when dealing with the rookie, but one that made him sound much older than he was. "Elena, we laugh because we don't wanna be sad about it. Right now we wanna remember what he was like _alive_. It's the job, we all knew it when we signed up. We all expect to go. But when you're a rookie, you forget that anyone else could go before you. I know it's a not on purpose, but as a Turk you're always dressed for a funeral."

"But-"

"We all do it different," he said, not letting her even start the spiral. He'd heard a speech like this before and if he was both lucky and unlucky, he would survive to make it again. "I'm predictable, I'll be beating the shit out of a punching bag, or starting a bar fight later. Rude will do what he does. The boss will do what he does. You gotta find whatever helps you get through it. Go for a swim, sing your lungs out at a Karaoke bar, go destroy some shit at the junkyard, hit the firing range." He kicked back the rest of his drink, "You'll figure it out." To be honest, he wasn't sure if Rufus had a personal ritual for loss. The man always seemed so disconnected and Reno didn't know if the man had ever felt loss strong enough since his mother passed years ago. He certainly didn't display any negative reactions to the death of his father.

Elena held her drink in her lap and stared at it for a few seconds. No one said anything for a bit, Reno poured himself some more and gestured with the bottle. Rufus put his glass forward and the redhead splashed some more liquor into it. Elena then knocked the rest of hers back, which she hadn't touched since the toast, and held out her glass for a refill. Resisting the urge to cough as her face turned a little red.

"Careful, Turks usually don't become alcoholics until _after_ their first year, you'll look like an over-achiever." he smirked, pouring more into her glass, "For now, why don't you tell us something you remember about Tseng?"

*****

Cloud was sitting in the room in Gongaga, Tifa and Barrett had just left him alone with his thoughts. He didn't know what to do. He felt like he wasn't himself, and that he had no control. He shared these concerns with Tifa and Barret. Barret had responded as expected, by giving him a verbal kick in the ass and telling him that at the core his problems weren't really that different from anybody else's. "How many people in this world do ya think really understand themselves?"

Barrett had left the room first, Tifa not far behind. Before she left she looked at him and said kindly "I know who you are. You're still the same Cloud who promised to help me out if I was ever in a bind." There was a confidence in her voice and expression when she had said it. He'd never imagined Tifa as being someone to lack confidence until he'd seen her with it now. She knew him, she knew who he was and believed in him. Right now that meant more than he would have ever thought.

What was he supposed to do? Should he give up and leave? Where would he go?

In his dream, Aerith had told him to take care of himself, so that he "didn't have a breakdown."

What would make him have a breakdown? He could feel it in the back of his mind. Some truth balled up in the corner, locked up tight and afraid to be known.

_What’s it like to be in SOLDIER?_

It frightened him, but he didn't know why.

After several minutes dealing with his inner turmoil he left the room, he found his way down to the lobby. The innkeeper smiled at him, "You got some good friends there, they were so worried you were never alone until you woke up." Cloud looked towards the door, then back at the man and gave a slight smile and a nod.

Walking outside he was unsurprised to find Barret and Tifa there. Barret asked if he made up his mind yet, sit here and worry or go find out the truth? Besides if he went nuts Barret would just smack him "upside his spikey blonde head" and bring him back to normal. Afterall they had plenty of practice with Vincent's limit breaks didn't they?

If it happened, they would deal with it.

Cloud smiled, these were his friends, they would stand by him and help him through it. "Call the others back, Aerith told me where she was going."

***

While they were packing up to leave Gongaga, Reeve noticed Tifa coming back from a rather long trip to the general store with Ralena and Vincent, a serious and thoughtful expression on her face. He was sure the two were sharing something vital with the woman, and he found himself wondering what it would be. He assumed the empath may have picked up something from Cloud, but then why wouldn't they talk to him about it?

According to Cid, it would take at least four days to travel to Bone Village, which was a small settlement and archeological dig site. It was the only spot of civilization on the border of their destination, the Sleeping Forest. Cloud said that Aerith had visited him in a dream. She said that she was going to the City of the Ancients which could only be reached through the Sleeping Forest. Sephiroth also got into the dream somehow and expressed his intent to stop her. Reeve wasn't sure how much of Sephiroth's message was real and how much was just Cloud’s worries manifesting themselves, but either way it was a valid concern. Sephiroth certainly had a way of beating them to wherever they were going.

Still, they felt the need to catch up to her quickly. The chocobo would get Aerith to her destination well ahead of them. Not only could it go faster but it could cut over land when that was the shorter route. On top of that, they honestly had no idea if Sephiroth had any limit to his ability to fly. They had to assume that he would catch up to their friend before them if they didn't hurry.

As they traveled, brief morning sparring sessions became the norm for most of the younger fighters on the team while Cid, Barret and Vincent got the plane prepped after camp. It seemed to help take off the edge for most of them.

How Reeve envied having such energy.

He spent relatively little time logged into the Cait Sith unit during the travel time. He made sure to check in with Avalanche during his mealtimes and set up alerts on his command console in case they needed him.

The only group activity he really missed out on, which didn't directly concern him, was a quick shopping excursion in the last town for cold weather clothes and a restock on other supplies before they crossed the water to the Northern Continent.

Once again he felt oddly useless, there was nothing he could do but follow along with the rest of them. Why did he feel bad about it? At least he could use the time to catch up on his normal work, which just didn't seem as fulfilling as it used to be.

He found himself frequently looking at the video feed from the unit while he was working at his desk. Nearly as often as he looked at the incomplete update report on Avalanche's activities. Aside from giving a vague response when asked about Tseng's whereabouts he hadn't submitted it yet. Picking and choosing the details, Reeve tried not to pull out his hair while wording his latest report. When he suddenly realized he had plenty to say in regards to Sephiroth's plan, that had nothing to do with Avalanche directly, he found himself able to put together something worth turning in.

… What was he doing? He had always felt confident in his level of his work and dedication. It was a mundane skill, but he was proud at his ability to make reports that had the perfect balance of detail, brevity and understandability. Over the years he had learned how to word them in such a way as to get the former president to approve his requests with barely a question. Why did he feel compelled to slack on this particular bit of information?

If he was so concerned about Aerith's safety, why not report her location? Why not have the Turks sent to retrieve her? True, she wouldn't be happy as a captive of ShinRa, but she would be safe from Sephir-

No. She wouldn't. The president hadn't been safe in his own office. Arguably one of the most secure rooms in the above ground portions of the tower. Given that they found the man pinned to his own desk with a sword, did they have any hope of saving her?

Reeve tried to remain positive. Even if he hadn't really been a SOLDIER, Cloud was involved in stopping Sephiroth five years ago. Now he was much more skilled and they had other able warriors who were invested in saving their friend.

When Avalanche arrived at Bone Village, Reeve was present and eager to find out what their next step would be.

They were all sorely disappointed.

There was nothing to do but more waiting. Aerith had been there, and left the blue chocobo nearby, but for now they could go no further. Apparently, the Sleeping Forest was named for some sort of enchantment, and the only way to get passed it was to get an artifact known as a Lunar Harp. "A girl in pink" and later a "man in a black" had taken the last two harps in the village. Avalanche would have to wait for the team to dig up another one. They were hardly rare items at the dig site, but they still had to find one and they only had enough diggers to work on one spot per day.

***

As they waited for the digs to bear fruit various members decided they would take the time to work on some other skills after the morning sparring sessions.

Yuffie wanted to perfect the technique she was working with the Transform Materia they had a acquired a while ago. She had gotten tired of lugging her duffle around and had finally managed to use the _Mini_ spell to shrink it to the size of a soda can and get it to last for several hours with a single casting.

In the morning, Ralena, Vincent, Nanaki and Iris went out into the wild. After they returned, Ralena practiced using her abilities to detect people, roaming the village and trying to guess how many people were on the other side of a building or piece of terrain. Aside from Vincent, Nanaki and Cloud she had difficulty identifying anyone. Being partly animal in heart and mind, Nanaki just felt different and Cloud had that strange tint that was so obvious, now that she knew it was there.

Naturally, Cid worked on the Tiny Bronco day one, with Barret and Cloud mostly helping him. At the end of day two they decided to hide it somewhere until they had to leave, since they weren't sure what would happen after getting through the Sleeping Forest.

Tifa found herself at a bit of a loss for what to do. She worked with Yuffie a bit, as they had a second Transform Materia and there was certainly no harm in minimizing everyone's gear. After Vincent and Ralena pulled her aside and told her everything about what they knew and how they knew it, they all agreed that as long as they didn't let Cloud isolate himself they could help him, but Tifa would have to lead the charge.

She just didn't know how to approach it. She couldn't just walk up and say, "Hey, Cloud when you came home two years ago you were a trooper, not a SOLDIER, that was Zack, who I told you I hadn't met, and you don't seem to remember." She wasn't sure that confronting him with the truth was the right move at this moment. But at least she had someone she could talk to about it now. For now she would continue to be reassuring of her childhood friend. She would remind him of who he was, who he had been, every time it made sense to do so.

***

The first morning in Bone Village found Vincent wondering what he was doing. Ralena was sure that, if he tried, Vincent could control himself when he transformed. The problem was, that required testing, and practice. That required monsters. So they had to be out in the wild, with dangerous monsters and she would have to be there.

Not that he was worried about her safety, exactly. Every one of them could take care of themselves normally. But she would be distracted watching over him and trying to calm him down if things went sideways. Even if it was her idea he wanted another person there to be alert. But he didn't want anyone else there either, this was him, battling his literal inner demons. He honestly wasn't sure if he _wanted_ to have control of his body in the other forms, it always felt so strange and alien to be in another form.

In the end, he decided that another witness to this possible farce was tolerable, and they had asked Nanaki, who was the least put off by the Galian Beast.

"Did you ever have a pet?" Ralena had asked, as they were about to leave the relatively safe path.

He shook his head, "Is it relevant?"

"Kind of," she'd said, "The Galian Beast feels very animal to me. So maybe if you attempt to tame or train him like you would an animal he would... respond better?"

Skeptically, he narrowed his eyes, "How would I do that?"

She shrugged, "I don't know what goes on in your head with the change, but it seems like you are always fighting it."

"Let it out rather than hold it back," Nanaki spoke up.

They turned to the feline and Ralena smiled, "Exactly!"

Vincent looked doubtful, "That... doesn’t sound like a good idea."

"Which is why we hiked over an hour out into the wilderness" she said folding her arms. "If you didn't want to test this you should have said so before."

"Once you have changed, try to point it at something, rather than commanding it." The feline said.

"Also, if it doesn't attack us, maybe just… let it be for a minute before changing back." At least she had the sense to look sheepish at the suggestion.

He raised a brow, was she sure she didn't know what went on in his head? The beast greatly resisted being put back in the recesses of his mind.

"And try not to worry," Ralena said, "I can calm you down." Since they left Junon she'd had a lot of practice projecting. After all, it was something she could do while the Tiny Bronco was moving. While she wasn't 100% sure she could bring him back, she wasn't about to tell him that.

He sighed, why was he really doing this? It seemed stupid, but her pep-talk earlier had fooled him into having hope in the moment. Still, they could at least try it today. If it felt no different, than it wasn’t worth wasting more time on. But when he thought about some of the dreams he'd been having, where the Galian Beast was wandering around like an animal in new territory... maybe it was worth a shot.

He was sure the others would need to be handled differently. The Death Gigas was close to the surface now. He'd heard it following behind him in the wandering dreams, it's heavy feet thumping on the ground in step with him, an occasional growling breath as they went into new terrain. He couldn't _see _it though, it was always behind him so far.

"Hopefully we will get the Galian Beast," Vincent said, "The next one seems to be getting ready."

"Next one?" Ralena and Nanaki asked at the same time.

He looked at their surprised reactions. Had he forgotten to mention it. He shook his head, as if to apologize, "I forgot that I haven't said so before," he said, "There are four beings within me, until recently the other three have been... asleep."

"Oh... fun," Ralena responded unenthusiastically, "Well here's hoping you get to choose which one comes out."

He let out a slow breath, "Somehow I doubt that."

As they started Ralena and Nanaki mostly sat on the sidelines, using support materia, and thinning out or slowing the monsters so that Vincent didn't get overwhelmed and outright killed. She also hyped him up to bring the change on faster. He could tell the other two were itching to jump into the fight. Ralena seemed to grimace every time she let him get hit. It was their job as a frontline fighters to take or deflect the hits, just letting it happen to him grated against her. He was at least using the opportunity to brush on his close quarters fighting, which he mostly used on people and not monsters, so there was that.

In the end, it went better than he had anticipated, and Nanaki's input was invaluable. He was able to, sort of, communicate with the beast, which he said was rather surly and more intelligent than the average creature. He had trouble explaining it though, translating from animal to human was... troublesome. It came down to the fact that it didn't like being caged all the damn time and then being shoved back in as soon as things calmed down.

It was far from ideal, and Vincent was exhausted after multiple changes in rapid succession. For the first time since waking he felt like he was starving. But he couldn't deny that there was progress. The effort and pain to change back felt like less. Even if it took longer, the Galian Beast no longer menaced his comrades when the enemies were slain. He wondered if it would have to get used to all of the members of Avalanche, or if it would recognize them from his memories. He could remember what it witnessed after all. Vincent was certain that true control would never come, but if he could at least be sure he wouldn't attack his friends that would give him some peace of mind.

The empath had to admit to herself, she had been tempted to try and tame his beast form herself, but she didn't want to be a crutch. Also, she wasn't sure how Vincent would feel with memories of her calling him a "good boy" would have gone over. The sudden thought about getting the beast to heel and shake hands certainly made it hard for her to not bark out a bizarrely timed laugh during one of the fights.

By the time they left Bone Village, Ralena would be able to reliably mimic the effect of the _Fury_ and _Sadness_ spells, allowing her to help her comrades hit their limit breaks faster, or slower if Vincent's preference was to be met in the future.

They were taking a leisurely pace back when the redhead said something that sounded completely random, "Maybe you should name him."

"Who?" he asked suspiciously.

"The Galian Beast."

He gave her a level gaze, "It is not a pet." He knew she didn't need a verbal response to understand his opinion on the matter, but he believed his feelings about this warranted being spoken.

"Can you get rid of him?" she asked, clearly prepared for this argument.

"No."

"Will he be with you the rest of your life?"

He narrowed his eyes at her, "Probably."

"Then you should, _probably_, name him."

They were quiet for several minutes, Nanaki had a smirk on his face, which irritated Vincent for some reason. He'd never wanted The Others to be part of him, he was pretty sure that it was the same for them. Naming them would make them feel welcome… and maybe that was her point.

He still didn't like it.

"I bet you've named at least one gun." Ralena said as if the thought just came to her, "You can't tell me a hunk of metal has more personality than he does."

He couldn't help but notice that she referred to _it_ as _he_. He sighed, "I will consider it."

***

Cloud was frustrated. Their first choice of a dig site had not yielded a Lunar Harp. He understood the limitations that the site supervisor had given them. Avalanche was paying to re-route their focus for a few days, after all, the people working here needed pay and supplies. Fortunately the meat Nanaki, Ralena and Vincent brought back that morning contributed to the pay. Still, it was disheartening to have to wait longer when he knew that Sephiroth was stalking Aerith.

As he approached the guest house he looked up and saw Ralena waiting outside. When his eyes met hers she left the doorframe she had been leaning against and approached him. "Can I have a minute?" she asked. 

The SOLDIER looked behind her at the guest house, then shrugged, "Sure."

She smiled and gestured for him to follow her a short distance away, stopping at the lip of an outcropping that overlooked the rib cage of some massive beast. "It seems small, but I think it's important that I let you know that I am with you on this."

His brow furrowed slightly in confusion, "What do you mean?" Her comment had been too open ended for him to be sure of what she meant.

She sighed and wrapped an arm around herself. It had been hard for her to decide on this, but there was a lot riding on their group. With Aerith out on her own and Sephiroth in possession of the Black Materia it seemed like so much on their shoulders. "Stopping Sephiroth," she said seriously, meeting his eyes. She had talked through it with Vincent. He had asked her bluntly if it mattered who was trying to end the world. She barely had to think about it. For her, fighting Sephiroth would be like fighting family. It would hurt, but the world was more important than how she felt.

Cloud stared at her for a moment, only now realizing that he hadn't been sure of her conviction in this matter. "Are you sure?"

She nodded grimly, "Don't get me wrong, if I see a chance to stop him without killing him, I might try it…" She turned away for a moment, resignation coming over her face as she looked back to him. "But..."

"Why tell me?" He asked.

She shrugged, with a half-hearted smile, "I'm the only one here who _wants_ to redeem him. I thought as the leader you should know that I think stopping him is a higher priority." She turned her body fully towards him and squared her shoulders. They both knew that, with an opponent as dangerous as Sephiroth, stopping him almost certainly meant killing him. "I am with you one hundred percent of the way."

It seemed he still had a lot to learn about being a leader. He returned a smile of his own, "Thanks." He put out his hand and they clasped their hands together in a gesture of a promise made. He had no doubt that she meant exactly what she said and for some reason, that made him feel sorry for her.

***

Again the Nibelheim lab.

Again a door at the end of the hall. 

Vincent opened the door. A gunshot rang out and he fell to his knees. His vision swam before he fell over. A blink later and he was on a slab; in a tank; at the bottom of the pit in the midst of a change.

Vincent did his best to shake off the fear. This was a dream, it was the only way to explain the rapid fire changes in his environment. But it being a dream meant he had less control over himself, less control of his emotions and the fear was tar that stuck to him, no matter how hard he tried to remove it. He flipped through scenery again, like going through a rolodex, as though someone was trying to decide where to put him.

He ended up flat on his back on a slab. Pains from some surgery exploded over in his chest and across his forehead. He was strapped down and his vision was a blur, every movement seemed to trail streaks of color, making him nauseous. He closed his eyes, he could hear someone moving nearby. Soft soled shoes and awful aftershave... Hojo.

"Yes... That should do it," the hated voice commented. "This is the first stage... Let's see how well it took." A pair of hands braced themselves on either side of his face and thumbs pressed down on the fresh incisions near his hairline. He gritted his teeth and growled as his back arched in pain, which caused spasms to shoot through his chest. "Yes, everything looks good here, barely a trace of the horns."

There was another sound, bare footsteps, then a female voice. "Vincent!" His senses were muddled, he couldn't put a face to the voice. A pair of smaller hands touched his arm and the straps instantly came undone on their own.

"You're not supposed to be here!" Hojo snapped. The small hands were yanked away from his arm and he heard someone hit the ground with a feminine yelp.

He tried to stand, but he felt the now familiar animal coming over him. He ended up rolling off the table, landing hard on all fours. Pain shot through him again, he felt his bones break and reform. The cuts in his forehead split open where they crossed to allow long black horns to emerge and his skin crawled at the sensation of hair spontaneously growing out of his skin. By the time he dragged himself up to his clawed feet, Hojo and the other were nowhere to be seen and he felt the horror of his first change overtake him. He stared at his claws and a roar mixed with a scream ripped from his throat. He went back to his knees, clutching his fists against the ground, the unfamiliar proportions of his hands causing the claws to dig into his palms.

He felt gentle hands touch his face and his eyes snapped open. "It's gonna be ok," the girl said quietly. Her green eyes and young face were unobstructed by her short cut red hair. Concern and worry came out from her eyes. "The doctor's gone for now," she tried to reassure him.

She sat on the floor and set his massive horned head into her lap, stroking him gently behind the ears and down the long red mane. Each stroke seemed to take some of the sticky fear with it. He was able to catch his breath and calm down, but he could not shake the form of the Galian Beast. "I'm sure he will be back," she whispered conspiratorially. "But we can keep each other company until then."

There was a contented rumble from the beast, and Vincent found himself kneeling separate from it, in his own body, on its opposite side from her. It was like the beast had shoved him out of its body, to enjoy the petting all for himself. She looked up to where he was, smiling at him. "You can sit with us too, if you like."

Again he woke, by now he had decided it was never worth going back to sleep when his dreams woke him, even if they weren't nightmares. He glanced over to where the redhead lay nearby.

Ralena didn't show up in every dream he had, but she was starting to become a regular feature, nearly as often as Lucrecia. The other members of Avalanche had been making cameos as well, but none of them appeared in ShinRa Manor, only in other places. So far, when it came to the manor the only addition to the cast was the teenage Ralena, the version of her that was Hojo's victim in his mind. He thought that odd, since he had met the real, grown up version of her in that same building.

"You alright?"

He looked up across the room, Barret was awake, keeping an eye on the fire. The guest lodge in Bone Village was a yurt, a round tent-like structure, with a fire pit in the middle. So the group was arranged like they were camping indoors, they didn't so much have a watch, as took turns making sure the fire didn't go out in order to keep it warm. "I am," Vincent answered, "I require little sleep."

"Twitchin' like you were, I don't think that's why you woke up."

He gave the slightest shrug, "I am used to nightmares."

"Seems you ain't the only one," he muttered.

Vincent cocked his head slightly, "What do you mean?"

"We share rooms and sleeping space enough, I've seen most o' the others have at least one restless night."

Vincent got up and moved to sit closer, so that their conversation would be less likely to awaken the others who slept nearby. "How do you know they are nightmares?"

The big man shrugged, "Well they're at least active dreams. They don't always wake up, so it must turn 'round for them." He gestured with a stick to where Ralena slept, "Like 'Lena a few minutes ago, she was mutterin' something about Hojo and threw an arm out. Thought she was gonna hit Yuffie fer a sec." 

Vincent looked her way and narrowed his eyes slightly in thought. If it was the same dream again, maybe it was a by-product of her abilities? It would be better than if Chaos was doing it. He wouldn't know unless he asked her, but with everything going on it hardly seemed like something they could act on. 

"I seen more outta Cloud," Barret said, interrupting his thoughts, "but then I shared a room with 'im more than most of the others. I normally pretend he didn't wake me up." When Vincent gave no comment Barret continued. "Never seen someone wake up as calmly as you."

It had never come up to the others exactly how Ralena had found him, or how long he had been in the basement. "When you sleep in a coffin for over two decades, you find it useful to not move too much when you awaken."

Barret blinked, then tried not to laugh too loud, picturing Vincent trying to sit up too quickly and smacking his head. "Sorry," he said after a minute, "Shouldn't be funny."

"It does not bother me."

"Yeah…" Barret said, poking the fire, "Funny the things that don't bother us…"

****

It had taken a total of three days for a harp to be found. The site supervisor told them it would be cleaned, re-strung and ready for them by morning. Several members of the group made a point of thanking the diggers for their hard work before rushing off to prepare their things. The sun was barely over the horizon when the group eagerly set off into the woods.

Even with the harp, which had to be strummed periodically, the effects of the Sleeping Forest were noticeable. They had to keep an eye on each other as those furthest from the harp would start to stray from the group.

Vincent felt he was experiencing a strange sense of déjà vu, the oldest of the Others stirred within him. Perhaps it had been here once upon a time. He kept himself focused by taking an accounting of the group, making sure no one wandered. He caught the redhead yawning, her green eyes faintly glowing. He smiled slightly at the image. He had thought the name to be an inaccurate moniker, but her reaction and a seeming lack of animal sounds made him re-think that assumption. Aside from that and a moment where Yuffie somehow wandered into a summon materia, they managed to get through the forest without incident.

The forest path led out into a slot canyon with strange, rocky, shrub-like growths that looked like coral. After making their way through, fighting a few creatures that looked like flying sea creatures, they found themselves at the entrance to the Forgotten Capital, the City of the Ancients.

It had a strange sort of alien beauty, it felt like the water in the river they crossed over should have formed a shallow lake underneath the city. Many of the buildings looked like, or actually were, giant shells. The coral shrubs found in the canyon they entered from were here too and all of the pathways were slightly raised over the sandy ground.

“It was so… beautiful.”

Vincent turned to Ralena, who had whispered beside him. He saw her eyes fading as she took effort to shake off the image of the city as it used to be. “If you need me,” he volunteered quietly enough that the others couldn't hear, “I’m here.”

She turned to him surprised, then smiled warmly, "Thank you."

Cloud checked the position of the sun, “It looks like we only have a few hours of daylight left, and this place is pretty big. Let's split up to the east and the west side, and meet back here in about 2 hours. I don’t need to remind you that we’re looking for Aerith, but also keep an eye out for Sephiroth and a good place to rest.”

***

The city had relatively few monsters to bother them, but they still didn't want to risk calling out for Aerith, as that could bring out far more beasts than they could handle.

Given his enhanced senses, Vincent stood outside each building to keep watch as the others went inside to check them out for signs of their missing friend. Most of the houses they saw had a large, softly glowing stone near the door, roughly the size of a small melon. Eventually Yuffie gave into her curiosity and touched one. "Hey, it's actually kinda warm," she smiled.

"Really? Maybe they used it for heat?" Cid pondered.

"I dunno know about that," she said, shaking her slightly tingling hand out as she let go. She could have sworn that she had heard distant voices. "It makes me feel a little funny… you should try it!"

"Pass," said Cid blandly, heading out of the building. It was empty and long abandoned, like the others before, the dust covering everything implied that Aerith hadn't been here.

"Aww come on!" the girl said, turning to follow him out and knocking the orb over.

"Yuffie!" Ralena chided, coming down from the checking the upstairs "That thing has been there for over a thousand years and you managed to break it?"

"I did not!" the teen replied indignantly.

"Hurricane Yuffie," Cid smirked from the doorway.

Silently laughing at the other two as the older man called Yuffie a "clodhopper", the redhead examined the stand. Finding it still intact she knelt down to pick up the stone and put it back in its place. Once she had both hands on it, she froze.

"Ralena?" Yuffie asked once she noticed the woman's still form. She bent in front of the other woman and waved a hand in front of her face, "Moshi moshi, you ok?"

"She's not respondin'," Cid said concerned.

The captain leaned out of the nearby door and called for Vincent, worry clear in his voice.

The dark clad man strode up to the doorway, but didn't even ask what was wrong when he saw the empath. He quickly moved beside her. Sweeping her hair aside, he turned her face towards him and looked into her glowing, dilated eyes. As his fingers brushed her skin, a faint jumble of emotions skimmed against his own. "What happened?" he asked, the calm in his voice hiding his unease. She was staring straight ahead, clearly not seeing anything in front of her.

"I dunno! I knocked over the glowy rock thing on accident and I think she was gonna put it back. When she picked it up she just… stopped." The girl swallowed, "… I thought I could hear people talking when I touched it."

Careful not to touch it himself, Vincent took hold of her wrists and pulled her hands off of the stone. Contact broken, she blinked rapidly as her pupils shrank and looked around for a moment as if unable to see.

"Are you ok?" Yuffie asked as soon as it looked like she could understand.

The reply was a nod, and after a few seconds she gasped, "I will be." Vincent gently pressed against her shoulder, catching his gaze, she nodded in agreement and flopped back on to her butt to recover for a few minutes.

Cid leaned forward on his spear, concern and curiosity evident in his voice, "What happened?"

"It was like at the temple… but I could see a few things too, like photographs."

"Anything useful?" he asked.

She looked up at him and shrugged, "I don't know. There was one image, that terrified me, but I don't know why."

"What was it?" this time it was Vincent who spoke.

"It was a teen boy, he was injured, but there was something else… wrong with him. I couldn't tell because the image was gone before I could figure it out." She remembered golden, catlike eyes and shivered.

Vincent turned and picked up the stone in his left hand. As he did not have a dramatic reaction, he assumed it was because Ralena was more attuned to it, or his glove may have spared him. He could vaguely hear distant voices speaking in another language, as Yuffie had described. He also felt Chaos stir within him and wondered if _it_ could understand the voices. After a few seconds, he put the stone back on its stand without ceremony. "I think your sensitivities made you react to it. But we should still avoid touching them." Nodding in agreement, they moved onto the next structure once Ralena had recovered.

Later, when the two groups met back up, neither had found evidence of Aerith. As much as they wanted to keep looking, the oncoming night and their own fatigue forced them to rest. In the morning they would go to check out the center of the city together. Cloud's group had found a pair of neighboring shell houses with intact beds and sofa like furniture to sleep on. Splitting up as they had in order to scout, the group settled in to sleep.

***

He had waited for his moment, and it was finally here.

This was a simple task, but it had to be done a certain way. He had to wait for all of the players to be in their place. It would not suit his plan for the culprit to be suspected. He had to be known, he had to be seen. Cloud had to be there. He had made it to the city, he had even brought his little friends.

That was perfect.

Afterall, an event like this deserved an audience.

***

It was still dark when a knock came on the door. Vincent, who slept closest to the door, moved to open it. The moonlight and his night vision revealed Barret. "Is something wrong?"

Barret shrugged, "Cloud says he _feels_ that Aerith and Sephiroth are here. He's aching to get goin'. Like a dog pullin' on its chain."

Vincent nodded, "Understood, I'll wake the others."

As expected Yuffie was sprawled across her bed, yet somehow buried under her blankets and was difficult to awaken. Cid seemed to sleep normally, and aside from minor grumbling, became alert when the situation became clear. Ralena's bed had clear evidence of tossing and turning, crumpled up around her legs and one hand clutching at the sleeping bag she had been using as a cover. When he woke her, her eyes flew open, the green glow obvious in the dark. "What's here?" she whispered uneasily.

He was surprised at the immediacy of her reaction, "According to Cloud, he senses Aerith and Sephiroth."

Clearly afraid of something, Ralena still wasted no time in getting ready. "That feeling is here," she whispered, pulling on her boots.

Vincent was confused, "Isn't that Sephiroth?"

She looked as though she was about to say no, but stopped herself. "I don’t know, but… I feel like it _shouldn’t_ be." They gathered with the others outside the house, leaving most of their travelling gear for the time being, but prepared for a fight.

As they followed Cloud's lead down the dark path, Vincent again spoke quietly to the empath. "Are you ready for this? You'll have to remember he's not the same man you knew."

With a slightly pained expression she nodded. "Worst case, I'll freeze up," she said honestly.

"Yeah?" said Cid, looking over his shoulder at the pair, "What's the best case?"

She smiled sadly, "He recognizes me, comes to his senses and we all sit down and drink some goddamn tea."

The pilot chuckled and shook his head, he was never going to live that one down. They followed Cloud to a large forested area at the back of the city. The dawning light cast faint distorted shadows as they found themselves going into another shell structure surrounded by trees and nestled beside a pond.

Within, they found a long glass staircase descending below the water to an air filled space bordered by tall crystalline pillars. The crystals didn't seem the cover the whole space, the wall of water was clearly held back by some sort of magic, and morning light was just beginning to stream through the water above. At the bottom of the stairs they found themselves among a small grouping of buildings and platforms. Moving through the space, Tifa was the first to say anything, having spotted Aerith in a gazebo like structure over the pool that was at the bottom. The flower girl sat kneeling, hands together and head bowed, praying as they had often seen her do in the mornings.

The group gathered at the platform closest to her and Cloud held out a hand to the others. "I need to talk to her first." Many of them didn’t like the idea, but with no logical reason to stop him they let him go ahead.

The place had a strange atmosphere to it, and it set Ralena's nerves on edge. The beauty and awe of it was obvious, the way the water scattered the light across the buildings almost made it seem alive. She could feel the age of the place, like the city above and the waystation they had explored in the jungle. There was also a stink here, something that she knew didn't belong, but she couldn't find it for some reason. Was it Sephiroth? The vision from the orb came to her mind again. Slited pupil's… just like Sephiroth's. She pushed down the unwarranted fear and set her mind to searching again.

Vincent un-holstered his gun, noticing Ralena's green eyes darting around, searching. He didn't know who else had forgotten at the sight of their missing friend, but he was certain he was thinking the same thing as the empath. _Where is Sephiroth?_

As Cloud approached Aerith, Ralena gasped and grabbed her head. A spike of pain lancing through her head. Turning to look at her, the reason became obvious a moment later as he followed her gaze back to the platform.

Cloud was clearly fighting himself again, he drew his sword. He kept lifting and lowering it, strain showed in his muscles with every movement. It was plain that something wanted him to attack the Cetra woman. "Can you help him?" Vincent asked her.

She removed her hand from her head, eyes going dull in an attempt to lessen the pain. She shook her head, "He's not fighting his heart."

A second later Cloud lifted the Buster Sword over his head. Several shouts went off as the blade came down and with what must have been a colossal effort he stopped the fall of the blade before it could strike the flower girl. The SOLDIER took several steps back, shaking his head.

Vincent lowered his arm, he had been an instant from shooting Cloud in an attempt to stop him. He noticed fading magic leaving Barret as well. It seemed he was not the only one who had little confidence in their leader's self-control.

For the first time since they arrived, Aerith lifted her head. Her emerald green eyes met Cloud's and she smiled. Green white light shined down on her from above, and was momentarily blocked.

Almost before anyone registered the shadow, and certainly before they could physically react to it, a black clad figure dropped down from above. Masamune held in both hands, Sephiroth plunged his blade into the woman upon landing and met Cloud's shocked expression with a cruel smile.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Not to ruin the moment, but finding Aerith was literally in my outline notes under the heading "Stabby Time"
> 
> OMG, I passed the 100k mark. This has long since past the longest thing I have ever written and I am not even half way done *faints*


	15. Splinters of Sadness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> LIFE and death; Displays of weakness; Mourning; A Price Paid; Missing Information; A Will To Go On; An Act of Cowardice

Ralena was still reeling from the events that had happened on the platform. For the first time since the mountain pass she had set eyes on Sephiroth. It was hardly what one could call a happy reunion, or even a reunion at all. He had dropped down from above and impaled Aerith, before tauntingly drawing his blade from her body. The same feeling of terror washed over her, joined by the horror she felt at the scene before her. One of her hands moved to clutch Barret's arm for support as she stared in mute disbelief, her reality shattered by the actions of the man who was once her only friend.

Sephiroth was gloating over Cloud as he cradled Aerith. Tifa had rushed over, a phoenix down clutched desperately in her hands. The supernatural powers of the feathers didn't seem to activate and Cloud snapped at Sephiroth. "Shut up, your stupid plan doesn't mean anything…" He looked up at Tifa for a moment, who was desperately trying to revive the girl. He looked at the flower girl again. "Aerith is gone…"

Tifa's eyes snapped up to Cloud and she shook her head. Cloud held the still form close, ignoring the blood. Somehow he knew there was no bringing her back. He had seen it, from being so close. He hadn't simply withdrawn the blade, it had been a draw cut, slicing more of the woman's insides open than the cut in her clothing would imply, the amount of blood that had already pooled on the platform was a clear indication. His voice caught in his throat, "Aerith will no longer talk, no longer laugh, cry or get angry…" He pulled her closer to him, despite Tifa's weak protests. "What are WE supposed to do?"

Sephiroth seemed amused, "Are you trying to tell me that_ you _have_ feelings_?"

The blonde glared at him, hatred in his blue eyes burning infernos. He gently handed Aerith over to Tifa and turned on the silver haired man. "Of course I do! What do you think I am!?"

Sephiroth chuckled, it was rich, deep and cruel. "You should stop pretending to be human, Cloud," he mocked.

The others came out of their shock, Nanaki, Yuffie and Cid began to rush over as Sephiroth floated up off of the ground not quite catching the last thing he said as he rocketed off the way he came, dropping something on the ground.

The melon sized mound of flesh twisted and warped into a being of monstrous size and proportion. It was over twenty feet tall, its torso and bell shaped base of it was vaguely shaped like a woman in a monstrous greyish-red ballgown. From its back three black, serrated tentacle-like limbs reached out, one longer than the other two. Above the shoulders it lost all possible relation to human anatomy, the neck was the width of the torso and tapered down to a wormlike head, lacking visible features beyond a toothy maw framed by a pair of vicious mandibles. Its limbs, for lack of a better word, were short, quickly expanding into a horrific hand or wing-like shape, each with a several large hooks larger than a chocobo's beak. Purple-Black plating covered the top of its head, the back of its limbs and back. The whole of it had strange organic textures which followed anatomy that no one could find a sane comparison too.

It's very presence hit Ralena like a truck and she felt her legs go limp as she collapsed to her knees. She had been moving forward with the others and Barret was quick to kneel beside her, making sure she didn't fall off the platform while the others continued to join the fight. "Yo, Ralena, you OK!?"

Mutely she shook her head, bright green eyes unable to turn away from the monstrosity. The feeling of this thing was so alien, so disturbing it sent chills of fear into her very core. It didn't belong here, it wasn't _natural_. A foggy presence outside of her wanted nothing more than it's utter destruction, and she mentally groped for that strength. It was howling at the creature and she "heard" it as if she were underwater.

That _thing_ was the corrupter. She knew it. That was why Sephiroth had gone mad. This was what she sensed on the mountain pass, this was the undercurrent of the mood at the reactor. This was the source of Sephiroth's madness. This was the feeling that shadowed Cloud's heart…

She closed her eyes tight and took several deep breaths, "Help the others," she managed to get out, "I'll be fine."

"No way," the older man said, taking a moment to cast some spells on their allies. "Sephiroth could still be around, I'm not letting him have at you too."

Cid cursed as the being fired a blue light beam at Cait Sith in the back after the robot summoned and dropped several boulders on top of it, "This bitch has range!"

She heard metal clad steps as Vincent came up to her other side, a shot from his rifle filling her ears. Between two gunman during a fight wasn't the most relaxing place to recover in, but at least she felt safe enough to take her time. The feeling, the sensation of this being was overloading her senses and she couldn't turn them off. It was like looking at an optical illusion you just had to figure out while it made you feel nauseas. It was full of malice and greed and pride, but for some reason seemed to have little intelligence. This was a part, a piece of a whole, a thin line of intent went back to some parent source that was hovering at the edge of her range.

Sephiroth was watching.

The monster swung its tentacles out, one catching Cloud's boot, knocking him down and another hitting Red XIII's flank. As it pulled back Tifa rushed in with a rapid combo, including a sweeping kick against its base and a somersault off of its head. The longest tendril whipped around, its speed catching the brawler off guard as it struck her.

The empath couldn't wrap her mind around the core of it, it was too alien. She had felt the hearts of animals and monsters, they were simple compared to people. This was easily as complex as a human, but arranged in a way that…

With a shout full of rage Cloud rushed forward. One of the creatures wings intercepted the blow, but the sword impaled it, with a grunt of effort Cloud jumped up, bringing the blade with him and putting a nasty gash in the appendage. It didn't appear to bleed but the creature reeled back in pain while it made no noise. Watery blue orbs of magic bubbled and disappeared around the platform, damaging all they came in contact with, forcing those who could to back up.

She shut her eyes again, trying to force it out. Trying to understand would only drive her insane too. It's very presence was a lead blanket that she would have to shed if she was going to be of any use to her friends. Turning her eyes to the fight she flipped her thoughts over to analyzing the situation and the facts before her. Who was where, who was injured, how they were fighting. A few seconds later she had focused enough and began to gather magic, her mind was too scattered to attack, but she could at least put up some barriers.

The first barrier went to Yuffie, who had gone to cover Aerith. The girl was trying, and failing, to revive the Cetra as Tifa had done before, while also trying not to die. The threat of tears burned Ralena's eyes at the implication.

Since the others had retreated and were healing, Barret gave a shout of warning and launched a grenade at the beast. It exploded on impact and blue light struck out at the man in retaliation.

Seeing the empath casting, but not standing, Vincent spoke up, "You alright?" He asked, trying not to let strain show in his voice.

"Nope," she said quickly, gathering more magic, "But if you can't fight through it, you die," she said, quoting her master. Healing magic flowed from her towards Tifa. A cut on the brawler's tear stained face sealed up as she jumped up to strike at the creature, which blocked with one of its wing like limbs.

Vincent nodded to her and gritted his teeth. He was almost relieved that Ralena had collapsed. It had snapped his attention long enough to break the grip that of beast within him. He was standing on the edge of an abyss and the demon was trying to drag him down.

Nanaki ran back in, charging the creature, red light trailing and cutting at the bottom of the bell. At the same time Cid jumped in from above, he grunted in frustration as he was intercepted, cursing as he was flung back into the water surrounding the platform.

There was something about the creature that Sephiroth left to fight them that Chaos loathed. Once it had formed, nearly the same moment Ralena dropped, he felt like Chaos would burst from his chest in an attempt to destroy the it. He could feel it raging under his skin, every time he pulled the trigger it tried to take over.

It fucking hurt. There was some internal lock on the demon. Every time it yanked on its chains it was like the anchors were embedded in his bones. If it were to release itself, it would break him. Its bindings were something neither he nor Chaos could undo, not that he would choose to let it out. This was a fight they needed to finish. The warriors of Avalanche needed to do this, then mourn. This was a scene that would not benefit from the presence of another monster.

The fight went on for nearly another minute, the group dodging serrated tendrils and magic attacks while taking out their frustration on the monster before them. Swinging his blade overhead Cloud pointed it up towards the sky, a beam of light came from his sword and he sung it towards the creature. Flaming meteors came down from above and impacted it. It brought up a mangled limb in an attempt to block, but several other spells joined in the onslaught and its defenses folded.

With a strange echoing, wailing sound that cut through their minds the creature thrashed and curled in on itself, parts of it shrinking as though it was drying out. The now disproportionate corpse tumbled off of the platform into the water below.

***

So, they had defeated another piece of mother. Still, all in all this was a victory. He got the little Cetra bitch out of the way and he was certain that he angered the group enough to ensure that they would chase him to the ends of the planet. Sephiroth wanted them to chase him, he needed Cloud to get to the crater.

He watched them, needing to know his enemies. He was confident that the mystical methods he used to hide himself from view would prevent them from noticing him.

At the back, the man with the long black hair helped up the redhead. For some reason when Sephiroth looked at the her a distasteful feeling came forward in his soul. She looked directly towards him, green Mako eyes searching. She couldn't _see_ him, but she could sense him, that was… interesting, likely something to do with the fact that she had collapsed when the detachment had formed. Her eyes were a clear indicator that Hojo had done something to her.

Something itched at the back of his mind.

He turned his attention back to the platform and observed them display their weakness as each went up to the body to say their pitiful goodbyes. Cloud stood on the opposite side, watching as each took a moment. The youngest of them, who had guarded the body during the fight had the most notable reaction, she had bowed to the body, then stood in front of Cloud, sniffling a few times before wrapping her arms around him and crying into his chest for a few seconds. The red beast shook its head sadly, then gave a mournful howl. The large man put a hand on Cloud's shoulder and shook his head. The Cat-Mog combo bowed its head then did some bizarre dance before sheepishly leaving the platform. The older man with the goggles looked at her, then turned his gaze up towards the sky.

The redhead was tapped on the shoulder by the black haired man when her turn came up and she stopped looking for him. Red eyes took over the search for a moment, but he clearly used the woman's gaze for direction and found nothing. Approaching the Cetra a pained look of loss took over her face, hands covered her mouth as tears fell from her eyes. She cast a brief glance to the Cloud then went to wait at the stairs for the red-eyed man while wiping her face. He merely bowed his head to the body and then Cloud. The long haired woman, the girl from Nibelheim, was last. The only one to touch the body, Tifa knelt beside it and caressed her face before running off in tears.

Sephiroth watched Cloud pick up the body, and he found his eyes going back and forth between the puppet and the redhead. Something about her was different, something he didn't like. Something that made him feel… weak.

He sneered, turning away to leave, it didn't matter, nothing would stop him at his purpose. Like his mother had intended, he would become one with this planet in her place. He would succeed where she had failed. Humanity would suffer for their arrogance and he would become a god.

***

Cloud carried his burden up the glass stairs and out of the shell house, the others following along in procession. They stood on the shore as he made his way out into the water of the adjoining pond. The last of the Cetra to be laid to rest in their city. He did his best to fight back the sting in his eyes, eventually he found the edge of the crystal chamber below with his feet. From here she would rejoin the Lifestream, he was certain there would be no delay. The darkened cloud of her blood in the water was dissipating behind him, surprisingly, the water had removed most of the blood from her clothes, and if she hadn't looked so pale he might have imagined her sleeping. He moved her hands over her stomach, covering the mortal injury from view.

Her loose hair floated in the water around her, framing her face like a chestnut cloud. He stared at her face for a while. It was devoid of expression, there was no sign of breath, no sign of a smile or a frown. He finally let the tears slide down his face. This wasn't Aerith anymore.

Aerith was gone.

The only thing left to do was to give her body over to the planet and allow her to rejoin the cycle. Gently he lowered her into the water, blinking away the tears to get one last clear look at her, before taking his arms from under her and letting her sink into the still blue waters below.

On the shore nearby, the others stood watching, Barret had a comforting arm around Tifa's shoulders. Yuffie was doing her best not to sob, Cait Sith clutched desperately in her arms, Cid and Nanaki standing beside her. In the back, Vincent had an arm around Ralena’s, she too was crying silently, turning into his shoulder when Aerith was finally lowered into the water.

He had seen her green eyes slightly glowing when they were open. It seemed that she was having trouble turning everything off again. Maybe she didn't have the strength or maybe she just didn't want to block anything out. He wondered how much this loss would have hit her if she were normal. The amount of time they had spent with Aerith could practically be measured in days compared to the others. Admittedly those were full days and nights, and fighting alongside each other. Not like how most people spent time with their friends in times of peace, in increments of hours with days in between.

The woman was so kind and seemed wise beyond her years. She also had a mischievous streak and a boldness that somehow didn't take away from her charm. Even Vincent had felt drawn to her, like a family member he felt he needed to protect. The fact that he had let her leave on her own haunted him now. Cloud was the one who couldn't go with her. He should have stayed with her to protect her.

"_You feel more blame than you should._"

He shook off those ideas, given the method of Sephiroth's attack, Vincent traveling here with her probably wouldn't have made a difference, for now he had to choose to believe that. He carried enough regret with him already, and Aerith wouldn’t want to add to it.

***

They had gone back to their camp in the forgotten city. Cloud declared that they would take the rest of the day here and head out the next day. Giving everyone the opportunity to deal with the loss.

On the way back into the city, Vincent had held Ralena back so that she could "shut the lights off." She needed to feel this for herself, not wallow in the loss of others. If she didn't acknowledge her own feelings, he believed she would later regret it. It didn't make her feel any better, but that wasn't the point…

Each member of Avalanche was adrift in a sea of loss, with little islands of determination peeking through the surface from time to time, only to be sunken by a wave of emptiness, hopelessness or self-loathing. There wasn't one among them who felt like they couldn't have done something different. There had to have been _something_ they could have done to change that moment. Intercepted the strike, thrown Sephiroth off course somehow, threw up a spell, something, _anything_.

Sneaking in like an assassin, striking at each of them in turn, was the stark realization that Aerith may only be the first of them to return to Lifestream. They had been on this grand adventure together, chasing Sephiroth, uncovering secrets, escaping ShinRa, fighting monsters. They were stronger than most people, and had only grown stronger in their travels. It was like living in a modern legend, it had never occurred to them that they would not come out of it alive…

Vincent and Cid had found spots on walls to lean against and brood. The latter had started to light a cigarette, then muttered something about how "she didn't like them," and put it away for later.

Yuffie was going back and forth from trying so hard to be strong and collapsing into a fit of tears. On either side of her Ralena and Red XIII sat, heads bowed and each comforting the teen in turn. Cait Sith sat off to the side in front of his mog. The little cat toy was mostly silent, but it sat with its head in its hands and occasionally reached up and to wipe its face.

Barret had walked a few buildings down, out of sight from the others, he needed some time to himself. A few minutes where he wasn't being seen as a rock of support, but he couldn't do that in front of them. He wanted to fire into the air until all of his ammunition was spent, but he didn't want to be so brash either. The next monster he fought could look forward to a destiny of becoming more perforated than a cheese grater.

***

Reeve sat at his control panel. His chair was turned aside, his head in his hands. He was still wearing the rig which allowed him to control the Cait Sith unit directly, so hundreds of miles away the cat mimicked his movements as he occasionally wiped his face.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. He was just sticking with them to keep an eye on things. To settle his curiosity. To waste time doing something that, for some reason, seemed more fulfilling than his work.

He wasn't supposed to feel for them.

But then… why were his eyes wet? Why was his chest heavy?

Why was Aerith dead?

Operating the unit remotely had made him forget. This was all real. He thought he had remembered that. That was why his reports had less details lately. Because Avalanche was full of real people, doing real things. He blamed the lax reports on his workload. Maybe he just forgot how real it was.

She was really gone.

A thought struck him and he lifted his head for a moment, only to let it rest back down in his hands. Gods… he would have to tell her mother. No one outside of Avalanche had any way of knowing, and since Elmyra and Marlene were under surveillance the others wouldn't be able to get to her safely for a long while. It wasn't a responsibility he wanted, but he was the only one who could do it…

***

Like Barret, Tifa had walked off elsewhere to be alone. Despite their mutual romantic interest in Cloud, the two women had been close friends, best friends. It was strange, she expected to be angry, furious at Sephiroth. When he killed her father and nearly everyone she knew five years ago that feeling and a desire for revenge had overridden her despair. It wasn't until after she woke up, days later that reality had really hit her. This time it was the opposite. There was no burning rage, no want for vengeance, just the loss and a strange sort of confusion. She touched one of the glowing orbs in the Cetra house, as if it could tell her _why_ this had happened. The barest, unintelligible whispers came to her ears. When the headache started she removed her hand. She stared at it, flexing her fingers and making a fist.

What did it all mean?

She sighed and leaned forward, resting her forehead against the useless fist. Sephiroth still had to be stopped. But for some reason it didn't feel like revenge anymore.

Was that good?

She looked at her hands again, thinking about the reactor, when she had held his sword in her hands. When she had been foolish enough to think that she could cut him down with his own weapon when she had never wielded one like that before.

That sword had cut her down, and Zack, and Cloud… and now Aerith…

A fresh set of tears came on again, and she choked on a sob. She wrapped her arms around herself and sat down on the stairs of the house she was in. After today, she would be strong again. After today, she would hold herself high, she would follow Cloud and fight beside him. They would stop him together.

After today, maybe just thinking of her lost friend wouldn't make her cry.

.***

Cloud stood inside the room where he had slept the night before, he reached into his bag and pulled out a folded up slip of paper. Unfolding it he looked at it, not for the first time since Aerith had left them in Gongaga. Cheerful stars and crowns bordered the text, in the bottom corner was the face of a smiling black and white cat with a crown. He hadn't known why he had held on to it. A fragile memento of their first meeting with the robotic spy, it wasn't even the only fortune from that meeting. Was it for motivation? Was it to remember something? Why had he felt compelled to keep it? He read the slip of paper.

_What you pursue will be yours. But you will lose something dear_.

He crumbled the paper in his hand and slammed his fist against the wall. Did what he was after matter anymore? He never would have continued chasing Sephiroth if he had known this would be the price. If the price had been _any_ of them he would have given up weeks ago. But he hadn't seen the possible fall out. All he had seen was his goal.

All he had seen was Sephiroth.

"_You Cloud… _

_are a puppet._"

He loosened his grip on the paper as Sephiroth's parting words echoed in his mind. Had he been making his own decisions? How much had he been influenced? Before talking with Ralena outside of the Ghost Hotel every time Cloud had even thought of Sephiroth anger and a thirst for vengeance had lanced through his soul. He had forgotten about the man Sephiroth had been before, the hero he had once idolized. In his mind Sephiroth had become some irredeemable monster that was corrupted to the core since birth. But that hadn't been the case. Sephiroth had once been a man, a SOLDIER.

Just like Cloud was.

Had something gotten into Sephiroth's head? The same way he was now in Cloud's? Could _he_ do something so awful? Could he slaughter a bunch of innocent people? Could he try to kill his comrades, the same way Sephiroth had tried to kill him?

"_SOLDIER is like a den on monsters, don't go inside._"

A silhouette with swept back, spiky, hair flashed across his mind.

He looked at the crumpled fortune in his hand. He had lost something dear, but was the price for chasing that silver haired bastard paid? Would anyone else die?

His jaw clenched, they still had to stop him. Sephiroth still had the Black Materia. If he made it to the Promised Land before they could get it from him, he would win. He would be able to summon Meteor and everyone would die. Blue eyes narrowed, if they gave up now, then it really would have all been for nothing.

***

Miles away in a small house, the blonde Turk tried to subtly rub her arms for warmth. Once she had gotten into the building she had shed the cold weather overcoat in order to proudly display her uniform, but even the extra layer of clothes she had underneath weren't enough. But she would suffer it until the heater managed to raise the temperature of the once abandoned space. This building clearly hadn't been occupied in a while, like the someone had just locked the door and left it.

Before coming here, she knew that Professor Gast Faremis had left the ShinRa over twenty years ago and he had something to do with the Jenova project. This was what led Rufus to have her investigate his disappearance. It had taken some digging, and a few tips from her seniors to find evidence that suggested that Faremis had gone to Icicle Inn. One of the ShinRa employees stationed in the town was sent to check it out and was able to verify with some of the older locals that he had, indeed, lived there before disappearing one day.

With that knowledge, Rufus had sent Elena here to get copies of whatever records the professor had, and if possible, find out what had happened to him. Despite the plan to bring Hojo back into the ShinRa, it seemed the new president didn't trust the man. He wanted as much information as he could get without Hojo's knowledge. He also had some digital files from the science department copied to her station at the tower. The encryption on those things was insane, she wouldn't be surprised if her workstation caught on fire as the program was working on it while she was away.

She'd asked why she couldn't just retrieve everything and bring it back, why make copies and leave the originals? Reno simply said it was part of her job to figure out those kinds of things, but more importantly to do as the boss said. At least Rufus had assigned her something that applied to her strengths. Computers, data and records were the few things that she was better at than her seniors.

So here she was, in summer forsaken Icicle Inn, a village named for its first building, with a small data team, some equipment and a handful of ShinRa troops for security. Copying all of the video and audio records would probably take a day or two, they brought multiple devices for copying the older, tape based media format into digital. Some of the paper documents were harder to manage, as they had grown too brittle to be fed through the scanning machine reliably, and had to be done page by page. Maybe they would just pack up what was left of that once the video and audio was done, it was only one filing cabinet worth after all. At least making digital copies meant they had to leave with less boxes. It also meant she could immediately send anything she felt was particularly important ahead.

There was one other good thing about being here. It put her in the possible path of Avalanche. Tseng's death was still fresh in her mind and she had no doubt that those terrorists were to blame. The fact that they had, sort of, helped her in Wutai gave them no favor in her mind. Killing Tseng had been an unforgivable act. Her seniors had warned her against taking on a vendetta, a grudge was all well and good for motivation, but the mission _always_ came first.

She stalked the perimeter of the room again, in the hopes of warming up. The professor had kept things organized, it made it obvious that some things were missing. Whoever had left with those items, clearly had no concern that they would be found out or punished. Who could blame them? It had been over twenty years and no one had looked into it yet.

A little while later, she scrubbed through some of the footage on her laptop after it had been copied. Lots of Gast and a beautiful woman talking. On one of the shelves was a photo of them smiling together, the woman with a full pregnant belly. There was something vaguely familiar about her, but she couldn't place it.

She noted the dates and titles on the tapes, the last one was labeled "_Confidential -- Daughter's Record: 20th Day after birth_." She did another quick check, the organization of the records made it easy to verify that it was the very last dated record in the home.

Why was it the last? What had happened 22 years ago? It might not be on the tape, but they had found it _in_ the camera which had a bullet hole in it. That made it was worth looking at. Not bothering to wait for it to be translated she put it in the player attached to the old TV.

It would be relatively little time before Elena got a good example of why Rufus didn't trust Hojo.

***

The next morning everyone was gathered in the deserted walkways of the ancient city. Cloud took a moment to look at each of them. It looked like most of them hadn't slept well. He really hadn't either. Normally, it would be a bad idea to move with everyone in such a state, but they had to leave this place. Right now it meant only one thing to them and they couldn't afford to dwell on it. Sephiroth had to be stopped. Looking down for a moment, he closed his eyes and took a deep breath. When he looked up he saw that the action caught everyone's attention, which was good, he needed them to hear what he wanted to say.

He just hoped he could get it all out in one go.

"Everyone, I'm Cloud, an ex-SOLDIER, born in Nibelheim." His gaze ran across the assembled group, "I came here to settle a score with Sephiroth."

That statement was met with several looks. Cait Sith was the one to speak on it. "Why're you being so formal? Is something wrong?"

He shook his head, something was wrong, with him, but this wasn't only about that. "It was my decision to come here, it was by my own will or so I thought. But…" he swallowed a lump in his throat, he hated to admit weakness, but several of the others were forthcoming with their own when it affected everyone. Cloud knew that his weakness fit into that category, "I'm afraid of myself… There is a part of me that I don't understand. That part that made me give the Black Materia to Sephiroth. The part of me that almost…" the memory of swinging his sword over Aerith, ready to drop it on her made his blood run cold, "If you hadn't gotten through to me, I might have…" Aerith was still dead, but he couldn't imagine what would have happened if he had done it himself.

"...There's something inside of me. A person who is not really me. That's why I should quit this journey. Before I do something terrible." The many silent reactions were loud. His hand balled into a fist, and he clenched his jaw in determination, making eye-contact with each of them. He was surprised to see a kind of sympathy and encouragement in the gaze of the former Turk. "But I am going. He destroyed my hometown five years ago, killed Aerith, and is trying to destroy the Planet. I'll never forgive Sephiroth." The redhead among them looked like she just got punched in the face at his words, he felt bad about that, but it had to be said.

"I... I must go on, and… I have a favor to ask of you," he paused again. Was this too much to ask? No, not too much to ask for. He didn't expect all of them to continue on with him. That would have been too much. "Will you all come with me?... to save me from doing something terrible?"

There were several long seconds of silence. Barret looked doubtful, and that hurt a bit. Many of the others were thoughtful, with differing levels of doubt. The first to respond did so without words, in the back of the group Vincent nodded to him. Cloud smiled slightly and nodded back.

"Cloud…" Tifa started meekly, before squaring her shoulders, "Of course." Cloud needed her help, she had almost forgot that she told herself that she would not abandon him.

"Leave it to me!" Yuffie said energetically, it was a little forced, but she knew the effort would be appreciated.

Red XIII nodded, "Alright, Cloud." The man was trying to save the planet and he was asking for help with his weakness. It showed some humility and wisdom as well as determination.

"Yeah," Cait Sith said, as though he just realized that he agreed, "let’s do this."

"OK, man," Barret grunted. He didn't like the situation, but that had never stopped him before.

Cid gave a thumbs up, "We're with you, Cloud, no matter how goddamn crazy it gets."

He looked to dull green eyes of the last one to speak. Since the fight yesterday, in addition to being as somber as the rest of them, the woman had looked almost ill. "Yes," She nodded, "I'm going too."

He nodded his acknowledgment. "I don’t know what Aerith was trying to do. I don't know how she was going to save the planet from Meteor, but if we can get the Black Materia back before Sephiroth uses it, then we have a chance to stop him."

There was a brief silence as everyone moved to pick up or shrink their travelling gear. Cloud moved over to the redhead. "Are you sure you're ok?" He asked her concerned. The fight had been so chaotic and painful, that most of them only noticed that she wasn't in thick of it and couldn't take the time to see what she was doing. "Did you freeze up, or was it something else?"

"I'm sorry," she looked down, a little ashamed, "When that _thing_ appeared, it overwhelmed me. It just felt so… _wrong_."

"Yeah, Jenova knocked her offa her feet as soon as it showed up," Barret said.

"THAT was Jenova!?" Cid asked surprised, none of the group who had joined up after Midgar had ever seen the creature. They had only heard mention of it.

"I think it was part of it…" Ralena said. The fact that it was Jenova meant everything was still Hojo's fault as far as she was concerned. That gave the world a sad sense of normalcy again. The thing still had a level of consciousness, even the 'dead' pieces of flesh that fell into the water still had a presence she could sense. She shook her head and explained that Sephiroth felt sort of like the creature, but when Jenova showed up its unfiltered presence was like a tidal wave, she also said it felt like it was connected to something else. She didn't tell them that Sephiroth had watched the fight, believing it would only upset everyone and she didn't think it was important. "If we fight it again, you might not be able to count on me."

"Don't be so hard on yourself," Barret said, "You pulled it together and focused on support and healin', that's not nothin'."

She gave him an appreciative smile. "Now that I know what to expect I'll do my best, but it was like half of my body wanted to run and hide from Jenova."

"Wait a sec…" Cait Sith suddenly said, speaking up, "Vincent, didn't you say that Jenova cells were used on Sephiroth?"

A dark shadow went over the man's face, but he nodded, "Yes, while his mother was still pregnant."

"Shit, no wonder he went off the deep end." Cid said, finally lighting a cigarette, "Thinkin' _that _was his mom."

"I hate to ask, but are there any others?" Yuffie asked, "Like Sephiroth, I mean."

Assuming she was the only one to have read anything in the basement of the ShinRa Manor, Ralena took this one. "According to the documents in Nibelheim there was another, similar project at the same time. Project G with two people: codenamed Subjects A and G. But they were part of Hollander's experiment that was conducted elsewhere." Hojo had mentioned it in his notes, and there seemed to be a certain level of disdain in his language but no details. At the time she'd had a difficult time wrapping her head around everything when she had read it. Especially with Sephiroth and Hojo's echoes wandering around behind her most of the time.

An image of black and white wings flashed through Cloud's mind, and a spark of memory gave him the names. "I bet it was Genesis Rhapsodos and Angeal Hewley. They were First class SOLDIERS that came up in the ranks with Sephiroth."

Yuffie made a sour expression at the names. She may have been too young and sheltered at the time of the Wutai War to really know much about the bloody details, but she did know the names of the three men responsible for the most deaths.

"Please tell me they are not still around," Cid asked, he knew the names, but he had trouble placing them.

Cloud shook his head, "They were announced KIA before Nibelheim." But those announcements were rather sudden…

"Should I point out that Sephiroth was also supposed ta be KIA too?" Barret said.

Thinking out loud Cait Sith added, "I think if they were around we would have seen evidence of them by now."

Ralena had little helpful information. "I'm pretty sure Sephiroth believed they were dead…"

***

Again he sat on her bed as she worked her hands across the keys. He stared blankly across the room in the general direction of her bookshelf. Barely noticing when the music stopped. "How did I do, Seph?"

Having been lost in his thoughts, he was almost startled at her voice. "I wasn't listening… I apologize." He saw the expectant look on her face melt into a confused frown, she had _never_ seen him startled before. He turned to look off into the distance again, "I have a lot on my mind tonight, I shouldn't have bothered you."

Her disappointment quickly gave way to concern as she took in his expression. She turned her chair around to fully face him. "You know I prefer your company to sleep."

He scoffed, "I am hardly good company on a normal night."

"You call me by my name and treat me like a person, that makes you the best friend I have ever had," she said smiling at him. That didn't land as well as she had hoped. It just served as another reminder to him of her pitiable situation. Sadly, she felt that he was her best friend because she had nothing for comparison.

"I should go," he said quietly, standing up.

The teen did as well and moved in front of the door, as if she could even hope to stop him physically. "What's wrong, Sephiroth?"

He looked down in surprise at her young face, her expression full of determination and concern. "It's not worth bothering you about," he said, his voice still subdued.

"It's hurting you, so it is!" she said, childishly holding her arms stiffly at her sides, as though she were pretending to stand up to a dragon. "I want to help you for once! I don't know how, but I can't help you if you leave!"

He stared at her for several seconds, stubborn green eyes glared back at him, telling him that he had better stay for his own good. He closed his eyes and sighed, "Very well, you win." It had been a long time since he had said those words to anyone. He turned back to the room and sat back down on the bed, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees. After a few more seconds, when she seemed convinced he was settled in, she grabbed her desk chair, moved it over and sat down in front of him.

They sat in silence for a minute, during which time she seemed to study him since he wasn't talking. She looked away a moment and pursed her lips in thought. "Can you tell me anything?" she asked, "I can't tell if you feel lonely or sad or… I dunno. It’s like… you feel bad, but it's a specific kind of bad."

"Guilty," he supplied catching her eye, "Among the others as well."

She seemed confused, "What would you feel guilty about?"

He wasn't sure he wanted her to know, but if he was going to tell her she may as well understand. "Ralena… what do you think my job is?"

She blinked in surprise, then went back to thinking. "I don't know, I never thought about it. Do you teach fighting or piano?"

"Hardly," He chuckled at her, "Piano is a hobby, nothing more. I am a soldier, a warrior. I am the best SOLDIER that the ShinRa has ever had. I investigate dangerous situations and I kill monsters and people when they need me to. When I leave here for missions, that is what I am usually doing."

She held his gaze while he spoke to her, she was surprised, but for some reason she was not horrified like he had expected. Her connections to other humans was limited, so maybe the idea of him killing people didn't hit her as hard as he had expected. The idea did seem to make her sad though. "Are they at least bad people?"

"They are enemies of the ShinRa," he said plainly. She took the meaning as he meant it, they weren't all bad.

She thought a few more seconds before speaking again. "Do you feel guilty about a mission?"

"Not exactly," he said, straightening up and taking a deep breath, "I passed a mission on to one of my juniors. I did him a great wrong by not going myself."

"Did he get hurt?"

"Nothing he couldn't walk away from," He thought back to Zack when he returned from Modeoheim earlier that day. He had made a point of trying to stay out of the younger man's sight, who was distracted enough that it wasn't difficult. Zack had a cut on his face that he clearly could have healed by then and his normally jovial manner was completely gone. Angeal's Buster Sword that was now on his back was weighing him down with more than just its bulk. After his debriefing with Lazard, Zack had left the tower with a redheaded young Turk on his tail and hadn't been back yet. "Months back his mentor and another First Class Soldier deserted, along with Hollander. I knew there was a high chance that whoever went would have to kill one if not both of them." His fists clenched, "_I_ refused the mission, knowing Lazard would have to send him to kill his mentor"

She let that sink in, she knew she was missing something, the way he said it made it clear there was more than just the words he was saying. "Was he not strong enough? Did he fail?"

Sephiroth shook his head, "He succeeded, that's how I wronged him. It was cruel of me… I was selfish." He turned away from her, he had been a coward. "I sent _him_ because I… couldn't go kill them."

He didn’t call them friends, but she knew that was the unspoken word. When the realization struck her, tears immediately welled up in her eyes. He would never allow himself to cry and for some reason that made her more sad for him. "Genesis and Angeal?" she breathed out. She'd never met either of them, but she had seen them when her visions manifested. She knew they were on the very short list of people Sephiroth cared about. His green cat like eyes looked at hers for a moment and he nodded. "Oh Sephiroth, I'm so sorry!" She immediately wrapped her arms around him, trying her best to be supportive. Pouring what comfort she could out to him.

As she cried on his behalf, he sat there silently, not moving, staring low through half lidded eyes. After a minute he tilted his head slightly to lean against hers and moved one arm around to rest on her back. The barest whisper left his lips, "Thank you."  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • In case you are unfamiliar, I used the Mobius artwork to inspire my description of Jenova Life  
• I tried to think of a plot reason to save Aerith, and given my strict adherence to the original plot so far, I felt I needed a damn good reason to save her (other than I don't want her to die). Unfortunately, I didn't come up with one…


	16. Trigger Situation

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Welcome Back Hojo; Breadcrumbs; Origins of the dead; Search and Destroy; Fireside Chat; Waiting on Wishes

Sometimes as a Turk, you had to do jobs you don't like. And sometimes, like in any job, you had to deal with people you didn’t like too. Right now Rude was dealing with both of those things rolled into one.

He had found the man in a small, but wealthy town outside of Costa Del Sol where the richer members of the ShinRa would occasionally go to relax. He was seated in the outdoor area of a cafe that was easily twice the price of another two blocks over. With the money ShinRa paid him, he could afford expensive tastes.

Hojo didn't even look up at the Turk's approach. "Are you prepared to go back to work Professor?" Rude asked without fanfare.

The man took a leisurely sip of his beverage, and made a show of turning the page of his book before responding. "If I was, where would Rufus expect me to go?"

"You would be going north with him." He said. "If you want to know more, we'll have to discuss it in private."

The older man leaned forward and looked at him over the rims of his glasses, "Would this have anything to do with _that_ man?"

"It does," he nodded.

The only good things about dealing with Hojo were that he knew how to play the game and keep a secret. Of course most of the secrets he kept were his own, but you had to take what you could get in this line of work.

"Very well," Hojo said, putting the book aside, as if he were doing the Turk a favor. "I have been making my own observations, but having access to corporate equipment and transportation would make things faster."

"You'll have to discuss that with the President."

Hojo gave him a condescending grin, "Of course."

***

When they left the Forgotten City, Cloud said that Sephiroth had told him to go north. Now that everyone knew what to look for, it was a little disturbing to see his eyes fog over and expression change for a moment. Their enemy had a way into his head and no one was sure if it was a one-way connection or not. Did Sephiroth know their every move? Was that how he was always one step ahead?

The fact that Sephiroth told Cloud where to find him bothered Vincent. _Why_ tell Cloud where to go? Didn't he have everything he needed from their group? The man had been a general, and just doing this for the sake of a cat and mouse game seemed tactically unsound. Admittedly Sephiroth was crazy, but if he assumed that was the reason then there would be no point in guessing any of the man's moves. No. For some reason Sephiroth still needed Cloud. And while the gunman believed that Cloud was now choosing to follow the man for his own reasons, that didn't mean he wasn't being manipulated.

As there wasn't much north of them, it was easy to decide that Icicle Inn would be their next stop. If the glacier or the crater was their final destination, they would need thicker clothes and climbing gear and that town was the last place to get such supplies.

Using a chocobo lure materia, they managed to wrangle enough of the birds for the group to make good time the first day. Yuffie doubled up with Ralena, and Tifa with Cloud as they were a little short on the birds. As a side benefit, the image of Cait Sith's bulky mog on the back of an unfortunate chocobo gave them the first real laugh many had since Aerith left.

Early the following afternoon, the town was in view. Knowing that there was a small ShinRa outpost in Icicle Inn, a few members of the group went to scout things out ahead of the others. It was good that they had taken the precaution. They found a number of ShinRa troops who were packing up supplies and leaving a building on the edge of town. Wanting to know why they were there, Cloud messaged for the others to come around and wait with them. The last one to leave the building was a bundled up Elena.

After the truck left, and there was no other movement for at least ten minutes, Cloud waved them forward, "Let's go check it out, then we can split up from there."

"G-g-good," Yuffie said, teeth chattering, "Maybe we can w-warm up too."

***

It turned out that the house used to be the residence of Professor Gast Faremis and a woman by the name of Ifana. Vincent immediately identified the man once a photo of the two of them was found. Having known the professor and his habits from his last official assignment, the former Turk quickly located the tapes sitting beside an old monitor and other paper records. It was easy enough to tell that the ShinRa had been here to make copies of their own.

"Why leave anything behind?" Barret asked.

"Breadcrumbs," Vincent said without further explanation. Thinking about the previous conversation with Cait Sith. Avalanche was doing the legwork, if they ran out of clues they would be stalled out again and going nowhere. While the others poked around Cloud picked up a tape labeled "The Original Crisis" at random and started it on the TV. The VCR was one of the few familiar pieces of technology he had seen since waking.

As they video played, the word "Cetra" caught their attention, and poked at the still open wound of their missing friend. In the next recording, the word "Jenova" caused any others who were searching to be put to a halt as they gathered to hear something that would, hopefully, be useful.

***

Avalanche left the house in groups of three in the hopes of being less conspicuous, they went about getting rooms, warmer clothes, climbing gear and other provisions. Nanaki and Cait Sith were quickly escorted to the Inn as the most stand out members of the group in the current environment.

Vincent and Ralena escorted Nanaki to the inn. As the gunman went up to the room with cat to put down their things. Ralena walked over to the den, and starred out the window. She closed her eyes and tried to banish what they had seen at the house. She had again found herself standing in front of a vision of Hojo with a gun.

"You alright, 'Lena?" She turned at the voice and saw Barret walking in. Behind him she caught sight of Cid heading up the stairs.

She sighed, "Is it that obvious?"

He grinned, "Well if _I_ noticed, then I guess so."

She shook her head, her mind had been stuck on seeing Hojo back at the Faremis house. "I haven't seen that man in over five years, but I had the urge to run when he showed up on a stupid tape. It's not like it was even real…" The glimpses she had of him in the ShinRa mansion before were patchy and unclear. She was ashamed of her reaction, she could stand up to behemoths and dragons with more caution than fear and the mere image of_ that man_ made her want to flee. She didn't even know _why _she was afraid of him anymore. There were other things bothering her too, but she wasn't sure what. A mental puzzle that had been coming together, then she had seen Hojo's face and it was like someone had scattered all of the pieces. Some realization was creeping in the shadows of her mind. She was sure that when she figured it out she would not feel any better.

Barret honestly couldn't understand the idea of being afraid of another person, especially one as skinny and as fragile looking as Hojo was. Barret had always been the biggest, the strongest and, before he met Cloud, he was always the best ass kicker too. He did have a vague idea of what Hojo was capable of, he was considered bad _within the ShinRa_, so he wasn't going to discount her fear. "I don't know what to tell you," he admitted, putting one of his large hands on her shoulder, "But we're all here for ya. If you need one of us to take him out, you let us know."

She smiled gratefully at him as Cid and Vincent came back down from talking to the Nanaki and Cait Sith about their cold weather needs. The robot asked Cid to pick up a few specific items and parts for the mog to help with the climb and prevent it from freezing up. Nanaki just asked them to do their best with scarfs or whatever they could manage.

Vincent and Ralena broke off from the Inn and headed to get the climbing gear first. They knew Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie had gone to get clothes first as the teen was not handling the cold well at all. That had more to do with the fact that they had not been planning on crossing snow fields when they left Bone Village and had been ill equipped.

After two days of travelling in that environment, it seemed obvious that Cloud, Vincent and Ralena could handle the cold better, likely due to how their bodies enhancements at Hojo's hands. She was almost sure that Vincent hadn't even felt cold yet or if he had, he certainly didn't show it.

The pair had been assigned to purchase the climbing gear for everyone and had an understanding with the shop that they'd have to check the fit of the harnesses and may have to return the next day to exchange some. Vincent watched her go about their shopping task mechanically and without a hint of Mako glow in her eyes. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like this was not a good sign. Normally he thought of staying on task as a good thing, but she remained quiet and didn't bother with any of her usual commentary. Only talking precisely when necessary and her voice lacked its usual vitality. It was obvious that the tapes they had seen were the cause. When she was ready, she would talk to someone. Still this morose version of her just… wasn't right.

He was almost relieved when they got to the clothing shop to buy themselves jackets and she laughed when she spotted coats made for dogs. The convenience and ridiculousness of it had seemed to snap her out of her funk for as she tried to pick a size appropriate for Nanaki, before he convinced her to just bring him back later.

***

While the others were out shopping, Reeve considered the new information from the recordings of Gast interviewing Ilfana about Cetra lore. What Professor Gast had named Jenova was something the Cetra had called "The Calamity from the Sky," it's landing was the impact that created the Northern Crater. It was an otherworldly shapeshifter that appeared as dead family and friends. Using these appearances, it befriend the Cetra and gave them a virus which drove the infected mad and transformed them into monsters.

Then the planet, in a move worthy of Scarlet, created the Weapons as a scorched earth method to destroy The Calamity. Because, for some reason, the planet could not heal itself as long as it existed. A few of the surviving Cetra manage to seal Jenova away before the Weapons could be used, so they were sleeping… somewhere.

No one was certain if this was useful for them yet. The last two tapes didn't technically have important information.

But it _felt_ important.

Gast and Ilfana had been Aerith's _parents_. That was a shock that none of them had been prepared for. Even worse, the last tape, dated when Aerith was only 20 days old, showed Hojo coming in with ShinRa troops. Apparently he had been _waiting_ for Ilfana to have a child before showing up to claim his "specimens." A guard shot out the camera part way through, but the audio continued, long enough for them to hear Gast get shot and killed. Ilfana's scream and the crying of a baby Aerith hit them hard in a wound that was still open.

Reeve felt the pain as much as any of the others.

The man had long ago learned that Hojo's morality was virtually non-existent. But for some dumb reason he had assumed it had taken time to fade away. That was clearly not the case. Hojo's expression in the recording clearly showed his disregard for human life. Anger and a fresh wave of grief rippled through the members of Avalanche. Clenched fists, averted eyes, and a few loose tears.

The only strange reaction he noted was from the empath. Reeve hadn't noticed it at the time, but when he reviewed the footage from the mog unit later, as it had been looking in a different direction, he realized that she hadn't been looking at the screen. Standing behind the others, her glowing eyes darted around the room, and she flinched violently at the sound of Hojo's voice. Shortly after that her eyes narrowed, and she stared at empty air by the door while the others watched the footage of Hojo arriving with the ShinRa troops. Her body tensed, she squared her shoulders and planted her feet, as though there was an inner struggle to stay where she was. She flinched at the gunshot, putting a hand to her own chest for a moment. Then she closed her eyes tightly, clenching her jaw, and cast a glance at Vincent, the glow fading. By then the red clad man had turned to see her reaction, but Reeve didn't have an angle of his face.

He reviewed it a few times, and after syncing it to the tape directly, he realized that she had been glaring at where Hojo had been.

That was… interesting.

***

The mission was obvious, search and destroy. His feet moved steadily through the undergrowth of the forest, the soft glow of the surrounding trees making it pointless for him to try to hide.

Not that he needed to.

His current quarry was running, but tired, so tired.

Vincent's steps did not speed up as he followed the sound of panting breaths through the Sleeping Forest. A slight smirk tugged at the corner of his lips, this one had run for a while, he was in surprisingly good shape. Then again, the longer it took for him to find them, the stronger they seemed to be.

His eyes narrowed. He should probably be a little more wary with this one. Just in case.

This wasn't just his mission. Right now, it was his _purpose_.

Search: find his quarry. Those that had been marked. They were few in number, but they were growing alarmingly quickly.

Vincent walked past the hiding spot and stopped, letting his prey think it had a chance for a moment. The man was huddling under a large shrub at the base of a tree. He was holding his breath, doing a good job of being quiet. If it weren't for the fact that Vincent could hear his heartbeat and smell his sweat. Well, his prey should have known hiding from him wouldn't be easy.

With a near instantaneous movement, he covered the twenty plus feet back to the tree, and pulled the shrub, roots and all out of the ground. His prey wore clothing in an ancient style that he didn't consciously recognize. The man recoiled, and put his hands up in front of him, fear evident in his gaze. For the most part his prey had features he wouldn't remember, except for his bright blue eyes, whose pupils were reptilian slits.

"Wha.. What are you!?" the voice was frightened. But not as terrified as Vincent had expected it to be for some reason.

Destroy: remove any trace of them from the face of Gaea.

"Your end," he said with a trace of grim humor. Raising his right hand, energy began to gather in between the coal black fingers.

The man suddenly hissed, baring fangs he shouldn't have and lunged as the dark energy turned him to ash.

Vincent gasped as his eyes opened in the dark room of the inn. He sat up and almost immediately checked his right hand, making sure it was still normal in color and shape. He felt the patterns on his other hand beneath the glove moving.

Chaos.

He had been Chaos.

He had to force himself not to tremble at the thought. He took a few deep breaths to still himself before he silently left the room, not wanting to wake Nanaki or Barret.

There wasn't a whole lot of inn to go around, but the den hosted a nice fireplace to sit by in the wee hours. Vincent deposited himself by the fireplace, taking only a moment to stoke the embers back into flames. Getting used to the Galian Beast was one thing. Ralena had said Ulster, as Vincent had dubbed him, was like an animal and could be, for lack of a better word, trained. But the being known as Chaos was so old and powerful the idea of turning into it always filled him with dread. Part of him was convinced that should he turn into it, he would never be the same. Part of him feared that he would never change back and would forever lose himself within it.

Again he lifted his hand in front of his face, holding it out towards the fire. The backlighting from the flame made it look dark in color and the image of his prey snarling and turning to ash flashed across his mind again.

Making a fist, he forced himself to think on the events outside of himself in the dream. Given how the oldest within him had been stirring since they entered the Sleeping Forest he knew it was active. Could it have been a message from Chaos? They had learned from the tapes today that the Cetra had been driven mad by Jenova and the dream seemed to have something to do with that.

That confused Vincent, it wasn't like the entity to be helpful.

He paused and thought a moment longer. That may not be true. Maybe before now it just had nothing helpful to say.

A little while later, he found his mind turning to what they had witnessed on the tapes. As unpleasant as thinking about Hojo was, he preferred it to dwelling on the fear of becoming Chaos. Seeing Hojo kill Gast, Vincent figured it must have been after he had been locked away. Professor Gast Faremis… he had been a good man from what Vincent remembered. He was occasionally blinded by the idea of progress and discovery, but he never would have approved of a live human trial so early in the Jenova project, if ever. Thinking back now, that decision, brought about by the unplanned "opportunity" that Lucrecia's pregnancy provided, was made specifically in the absence of Gast who had been the head of the science department at the time. Once it was done, there was no going back…

It wasn't much later that he heard quiet, barefooted steps approaching. Looking to the doorway he saw Ralena walking in, coming to investigate the source of warmth and light. When she saw him, recognizing him easily by the red eyes in the dark, the empath smiled sadly at him and sat in the other chair in front of the fireplace. It looked like Vincent would never have a night alone, there was nearly always someone else unable to sleep, he was surprised that the idea didn't bother him too much.

It wasn't a surprise to see her awake. Even it was wasn't really him, today had been the first time either of them had seen Hojo outside of their nightmares in a long time. Combine that with recent events and a restless night was sure to follow. They both listened to the wind outside and the crackling wood, looking into the fire and occasionally glancing at the other when they moved. After a while she broke the silence, "Vincent… " He turned and looked at her, to acknowledge that he heard her. He was surprised at the emotion he found in her eyes. "I'm scared."

There was honest fear in her eyes, not what he had seen the few times Hojo was a theoretical threat, something different. This wasn't a fear of physical pain or torture. This was a new fear that had more to do with the unknown.

"That thing, Jenova. It's… it's what I felt in Nibelheim. It was like a subtle stink that I couldn't place. It clung to Sephiroth in the reactor. When I saw him on the mountain pass it overwhelmed me and filled me with an intense fear that I couldn't explain. He's _infested _with it. It was in the black cloaked figures too, I could even faintly detect it in the dead one we found outside of the temple. It's… it's in Cloud."

Of course, the thing had nearly knocked her out with its mere presence, and she was still worried about the SOLDIER. "How bad?"

"You tell me," She said, still not looking at him. "I think it's how he's being manipulated."

Vincent turned back to the flames, Cloud didn't kill Aerith, but he had handed over the Black Materia. How much could he resist that control, and for how long?

Silence settled in again as he thought on her words. He was certain there was something else on her mind. Her hands subtlety clenched and unclenched together, her lips took on a different kind of pout and she swallowed several times. He was beginning to think of a way to prompt her when she finally spoke again. "Do you…" She didn't continue, her voice was thick with apprehension.

"Yes?"

She didn't want to think about, memories of what Hojo had done had kept the dark possibilities at bay earlier. But when she had tried to sleep, the information from the other recordings came to her mind, combined with the flashes she had seen in the Ancient City, the boy with the cat-like eyes... Once the ideas formed in her head she had been unable to shake them. She swallowed hard. "I know I'm not really a Cetra… but do you think that the Jenova Virus would turn me too?"

Haunted eyes finally turned to his, mortal fear on her face. The sickness hadn't killed the Cetra, it had morphed their minds and their anatomy, turning them into insane monsters. That had been the story, and the dream from Chaos certainly backed it up. If Sephiroth was any indication, this wasn't the same as Vincent's temporary berserker rages, it was a full and permanent transformation. As far as they knew the Cetra had never found a cure for it either.

He looked into her eyes and a dull pulse ran up his arm, for an instant he saw her eyes with slited pupils and turning to ash before him. He felt sick at the image, but refused to turn away from her. Only taking a moment to close his eyes in the hopes of banishing the vision. "If we were dealing with normal biology, I would say no…" He couldn't lie to her about this. He honestly didn't know, and she could easily see that on his face. What did any of them know about this virus, this enemy? Was it even a virus? Was it really an enemy? Was it still conscious? Was it just a tool at this point?

She looked away and he was grateful as the image of her being destroyed was a stubborn one. Especially with that look on her face. They both ended up looking into the fire again for a few minutes

For most of Avalanche, the knowledge of Jenova's history and origin was academic. For Ralena, Jenova was now a monster from the primeval past, a fear that cut deep into her modified DNA. On top of that, it was the thing that corrupted Sephiroth. He hadn't realized until today how badly her fears affected her. Maybe it was because she had few, but they ran deep.

"Can... can you make me a promise?" her voice was quiet, and held a hint a desperation that she couldn't hide.

"What is it?" he asked seriously, meeting her eyes.

"If something happens, if Jenova or… _anything_ drives me insane too... don't let me kill any of our friends."

He stared at her. This was not the kind of promise someone should have to ask for. Even among their group this shouldn't be something someone should even have to think about. But after watching Cloud fight with himself to not kill Aerith. After finding out what Jenova had done to the Cetra, and the track record of Hojo's known experiments, was it any wonder? She was serious, he could see it in her sparkling, wet eyes.

She was terrified. 

At least she hadn't asked for something as extreme as killing her. The way she looked right now, that wasn't a promise he could have made. It was a fear he knew all too well. One she was already helping him with, coming to terms with The Others. What she was asking wasn't so easy.

There were so many unknown factors.

A single tear escape as she awaited his answer, a star tinted orange by the firelight. He reached over and wiped it away before he realized what he was doing. "Of course," he whispered, his hand still lingering against her face, "I promise." He felt traces of her desperate hope change to relief as it sunk in through his fingertips.

She gasped at the words. She hadn't realized how much it was weighing on her until she had voiced it. Her eyes slid shut, forcing more tears down her cheeks, and she choked out a thanks.

Reluctantly she pulled back from his touch to wipe away the tears of relief that refused to stop.

***

Pale blue eyes turned away from the pair as Cid decided to take his cigarette elsewhere. He had just finished up with the modifications to the mog and was coming down for a smoke before turning in when he heard voices in the den. At first he was going to join them, but he quickly took in the mood and she had asked Vincent to make her a promise. Cid debated on butting in on the conversation, saying that he would help too. Then he noticed that she was crying, and it was far too late at night to deal with any of that heavy shit. Besides, it looked like a moment for the two of them and Vincent had it well in hand. If the former Turk was attempting to make any headway with the redhead, he wasn't going to get in the way. The man moved like a goddamn glacier.

Turning on his heel he quietly went back up the stairs, there was a balcony at the end of the hall. It would be as cold as Shiva's tit outside, but at least he could smoke in peace.

***

It had been a sad thing to go, and was never part of her plan. But at least she was not alone. Her mother had been there to welcome her.

He was here too. The man she had written eighty-nine letters to. The man who the reason that she made twenty-three little wishes. Twenty-three little wishes that she had rolled into one.

_I want to spend more time with you._

He had been trying to find his way back to her, but he hadn't made it. So he was waiting here. She embraced him and was amazed at how much it felt like coming home. It was a shame they couldn't just enjoy their time together more, she had so much work to do.

She went to move away and felt resistance, looking back he was there. To say that he had grabbed her hand would imply that they had bodies. But his essence attached to hers, and for a moment it was like they had form where they touched.

_"I'm going with you, I'm not leaving your side again if I can help it."_

She smiled at him, if there was anything she learned from her friends, it was that everything was so much better when you weren't alone.


	17. Walking the Glacier

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cat in the Snow; Enter the Gigas; A Cold Woman; Finding Pieces; The Planet's Scar; They were here?; One Worth Protecting

Nanaki was not happy.

He was not cold, but he was not happy. The only coat they found that fit him had a purple cow pattern on it. Who would dress their dog as a cow anyway? It was just confusing, they didn't even taste the same. He had gone to the shop with Tifa and Ralena earlier that day to find what would fit him, when the clerk declared that there were no other animal coats his size he had all but refused the offensive garment. But the two women cited the practicality of it, and after a few failed attempts to find a human coat that would fit and let him move properly, he relented. At least they didn't try to put those ridiculous "booties" on him, they only asked him twice, which considering the pair he was dealing with, showed evidence of restraint. Now they were trotting through the woods at the base of the Glacier, and he debated on the wisdom of passing up the boots.

They had left Icicle Inn a bit more quickly than they had anticipated. Cid and Barret had run into one of the Turks while they were having a beer and waiting for a food order. The little blonde had railed at them about killing Tseng, which, having not gone into the temple, they knew nothing about it. After deciding to believe that they hadn't gone inside, she had run out on a warpath, looking for Cloud. She was so mad she didn't think about following them. She hadn't even thought to check the Faremis house, where the waiting members of the group were looking through notes for any last insights, reviewing the map of the glacier and arranging the climbing gear. It was a morbid choice for a staging location, but as the ShinRa had finished up their work there it seemed like a safe bet they wouldn't return. When the two men reported about the Turk they agreed that they would head out at the earliest opportunity, since it seemed that ShinRa was actively looking for them now.

Vincent apologized for not including the encounter with a dying Tseng when they debriefed the others in Gongaga. But considering everything that had happened and Cloud's condition afterward, he had deemed it unimportant. Especially since the man's body hadn't been at the entrance when they left.

"Sooo what? Did the tooth fairy take him?" Cid asked.

Cloud shrugged, "For all we know, yeah. It was before Cait Sith came in, you guys didn't see anyone come or go?"

Barret shook his head, "Nah, we did a couple of patrols around the building. I didn't want to split us up, so there was a few windows when someone coulda come by."

The discussion didn't go on for much longer. It was callous to say, but aside from the angry little blonde, they didn't see how the Turk's living or dead status currently affected them. They had no way of knowing who knew Tseng was there, for all they knew he could have called his _mother_ in for a pickup. Vincent had cast a suspicious glance towards Cait Sith, but they had bigger concerns so he didn't drag out the conversation.

As they had set off through the woods, Cloud, Nanaki, Tifa and Barret were part of the scouting party, moving ahead of the group. Yuffie had originally been in that group, but she was still adjusting to the comical number of layers she was wearing to stay warm and it was slowing her down. The lavender padding puffed out so much she looked like she was a bulky as Barret and was walking like Cait Sith's mog.

Vincent was walking in the back of their group, as was his habit, thinking about the group's current mental condition. They just kept getting hit with these emotional or bizarre revelations, they didn't have the necessary time to recover between them either. Cloud was clearly a concern, but at least he was aware of his mental weakness and was doing his best to pull together his will and fight. Tifa was sticking close to him, giving encouragement, and saying things she thought would be helpful. Vincent wished she would just come out and talk to the man about the truth, but he knew it was easier said than done. His gaze turned to Ralena, her red hair stood out brightly against the frozen forest they walked through. They would, undoubtedly come across both Sephiroth and Jenova again. He wondered if she would be able to handle it if they directly encountered the two in concert. He watched as she was talking to Cait Sith further ahead, gesturing about something. She happened to turn back towards him, when her expression quickly changed.

Vincent noticed her slow her pace and look behind him, a searching expression on her face. Turning, he tried to find what she had spotted. He was still scanning the trees when he heard several rapid footsteps coming in his direction. He turned just in time for something to impact his chest hard and knock him to the ground. The snow made the landing soft on his body, however, the butt of the rifle strapped to his back struck him in the head and he winced. Now looking up at the sky through the trees he saw a blast of frosted-white energy shooting through where he had just been standing. Absently he heard the others shouting to take cover.

The missile that collided with him raised itself to a crouch, removing its weight from his chest. A hand stretched over his face conjuring a magic barrier that caught a second blast, this one blue and aimed lower to hit the both of them on the ground. Looking down from his perspective, he saw Ralena crouched over his thighs, arm outstretched with the barrier. She looked at him long enough to give him a shrug and a smirk, then stood drawing her blades and ran forward, over his head. There was no need for her to apologize for the rough treatment, the entire group knew a bruise or two was well worth not getting hit by an enemy attack.

He rolled over and pulled his pistol while getting up into a crouch, he would have smiled himself, had he not felt like he should have noticed the attack coming.

Ralena dove forward into the snow covered undergrowth, hoping to finish it off with a single strike. She retreated quickly, leaping back after her blade sang, hitting something harder than she had expected.

"Ice Golems!" she yelled.

Another burst of cold came out of the bushes and struck the magic barrier the redhead had put up over herself seconds before. Three diminutive figures came out of from behind the bushes. They were a little shorter than Cait Sith, but the constructs were hard to damage, could use magic and had hefty physical attacks.

One was charging up to strafe the group with its laser beam like attack, Yuffie timed a throw and was able to deflect the shot upward. "Spread out!" Vincent called, not wanting everyone to get caught in the area attacks that the golems had.

Cid dashed off towards one of the golems and came at it with his spear, scoring its stone-like exterior with his weapon. Ralena went in the opposite direction, aiming to split their attention and moved in with a thrust. Again she did less damage then she would have liked. The large white mog jumped forward, slamming both fists down on the third golem, and Cait Sith commanded it to push onward.

Vincent circled wide, having switched to the higher caliber rifle, trying to line up a shot. He took his eyes off of the targets for a moment as he caught the sounds of rapid, distant gunfire. "The others sound occupied," he stated, before taking a shot at the side of Cid's opponent.

"It's good, we got this! Ooff!" Yuffie fell over as she caught her weapon, still thrown off by her added winter attire.

"Ya sure 'bout that?" Cid grinned.

"Oh shut it!" she stuck out her tongue and circled the battlefield like Vincent, occasionally throwing or casting into the fray.

A blue beam raked across the field, catching Cid and Vincent in its path. "Dammit, we need to take out at least one!"

"Focus on Cait's!" Vincent ordered, while the mog was doing an admirable job holding off the thing, but Cait really was better at magic. A fact that Vincent always found curious and he sometimes wondered how a remote controlled robot could manipulate mana and materia. As the mog pulled back, he loosed two rapid fire shots into the golem. In short order, Yuffie's hawkeye came in.

Ralena made a flurry of attacks at her target attempting to push it back so that she could get closer to Cait. The problem with golems is that they are not intimidated. Fortunately, they were also short. As it began to gather magic she leapt over it, the ice effect it had in mind for her ended up striking the surrounding trees. She landed behind Cait's Golem and struck at its back with both blades, wincing at the sound. They would need a lot of maintenance tonight. She heard a triumphant cry from the robot, "Oh yeah! Yahtzee!" Her eyes widened and she jumped back as the dice he threw down burst into magical energy that pummeled the targeted golem.

As the fencer backed off to her original foe she saw one of the arms fall off of Cait's and Cid closed in with a double-tap while Yuffie threw fire at the pilot's opponent to distract it.

Back on her original target, the redhead slashed at it. A bullet struck the construct and she looked up in Vincent's direction again he was leveling his rifle at her. She wasn't sure the meaning of his expression, but erring on the side of caution, she immediately dropped, turning so that she landed on her back. An instant later the gunshot sounded hitting a creature that had been running up on her from behind. Even with the bullet wound, it attacked her. She managed to get a hand out against its neck to hold its snapping jaws back from her throat.

"Bandersnatch pack!" Cait Sith yelled out, almost getting pulled off of his mog as he dodged under one of the new attackers.

"I swear you think these things would wait their damn turn!" Cid grumbled, finishing off his Ice Golem.

Vincent fired again into the wolf on Ralena, it recoiled and she managed to kick it off and roll to a standing position. "Finish the last golem and circle up!" When they had spread out to avoid the area attacks of the golems, it gave the incoming pack plenty of opportunity to attack them individually. Yuffie and Cait Sith both had two on them, and Vincent found himself dodging one that tried to ambush him. Pulling his pistol he shot several rounds into it while backing up towards Yuffie, who needed the most help from what he could see. The clothes she wore had limited her range of motion and made it difficult for her to recover. The only benefit was that the extra layers were being shredded as a maw had attempted to close around her arm, preventing the beast from biting into her flesh.

Vincent closed on the group as they bore Yuffie to the ground, kicking one of the wolves off of the teen and eliciting a yelp as he withdrew a now bloody sabaton. He leveled his pistol at it as a line of electrical energy hit the five of them. Golems had no allies among flesh and blood creatures, and seeing a cluster, the remaining construct had used its strafing attack on the lot of them. The bandersnatch on Yuffie actually took most of the damage for her, but all three wolves and Vincent took the attack full force. He gritted his teeth, and forced himself to recover before the beasts, finishing off the one he had kicked, while his left side tingled with lingering current.

"On the golem! Fire in the hole!" Cid lit a stick of dynamite off of his cigarette, in an very trusting move, Ralena moved closer to cover him so that his aim would not be thrown off, slashing at the bandersnatch that attempted to follow her. Timing the throw so that there was little delay between it landing and exploding, the pilot tossed the stick and it landed beneath the golem. There was a boom across the clearing and snow fell from the branches above. Once the throw was made the redhead moved over to assist Cait Sith and Cid started towards Vincent and Yuffie.

The gunman moved to get the other canine off of Yuffie, just as he grabbed it with his gauntlet two more burst out of the forest nearby and knocked him to the ground. "Shit!" Cid cursed, as he lanced the wolf on the ninja with his spear, finally freeing her from beneath it.

A column of lightning bolts struck the ground around Vincent, forcing Yuffie, Cid and the pack that attacked him to scatter. A deep humanoid bellow came from within the smoking crater and a massive fist reached out high, before coming down and landing on one unfortunate creature with a sickening thud and cracking bones.

"The hell?"

Ralena looked back across the clearing, surprised at the sound. It seemed the next form of his limit break had come out to play. "He calls it the Death Gigas." she supplied, he had discussed it with her and Nanaki while they were at Bone Village. She was about to elaborate and got bit on her leg for the distraction. She stabbed down at the wolf with her dagger, but barely gazed it as it pulled away from her. Its retreat allowed the mog landed a solid punch on its side, pushing the creature back several feet.

Cid swung his spear out, trying to defend himself and Yuffie, while taking in Vincent’s new form. It was a massively muscled man-like being, a good ten feet in height. Stitches ran all over it, and skin of several different shades were divided at those lines. It clearly appeared as though it was pieced together from the largest muscle men that ever existed. In its square jaw it held a bit that looked like it was made of a double ended bolt and two more massive bolts stuck out of his shoulders. Sparks of electricity highlighted these and arched between them. At the end of its arms were massive hands, disproportionately large for a human, that nearly hung down to his ankles. Ralena recognized the shape and name from her monster research, the gigas' were a savage, giant race that were now extremely rare but once could have been found across all different terrains.

Yuffie rolled to one side of the gigas, and pulled herself into a crouch. Finally able to act since the wolves ambushed them, she began casting a group healing spell. Her eyes went wide as a massive hand swung over her head and swiped away a leaping wolf. The wind from that blow had moved her hair and she watched the stitched creature for a second to make sure it had no plans on attacking her before continuing her casting.

Without taking her eyes off of the wolves before her and Cait Sith, Ralena called out across the battlefield, "It should have some electrical-" She was cut off by a crackling in the air, followed by a net of lightning bolts scattering in front of it, catching the three wolves it was fighting.

"Right then," Cid said, "Heavy melee with an area attack." That meant hit and run tactics. At least the lightning field was proceeded by crackling, giving the fighters a brief opportunity to retreat. "Heavy" also seemed to be an appropriate term, as it jumped up and slammed down on the monsters with a ground shaking thud.

"Hey! He's stealing my moves!" Cait Sith yelled.

It was almost surprising to Ralena that this one felt different to her than the Galian Beast, Ulster. She had thought the feeling of the change was just the limit break, but when this one came about he felt full of explosive anger and determination, instead of the savagery.

The other bandersnatches growled and moved in the on the massive form that was cutting down their packmates. With a swing of a massive fist several of them were thrown back and Cid and Ralena used to opportunity to finish some of the off balance creatures. The wide arc of the gigas' arm kept Yuffie crouched down behind him, for fear of being struck on the backswing.

The wolf-like beasts surrounded him and again electricity sparked between the bolts of the Death Gigas. The spear and sword wielders jumped back as a field of lightning filled the space in front of him.

After the pack members that survived the shock limped off into the snow and undergrowth, there were several seconds of silence as the smell of O-Zone still lingered in the air. Ralena sheathed her weapons and gestured for the others to stay back. Yuffie was again, picking herself up, and was on the other side of the massive figure from her. "Hi there, big guy." She felt silly the moment the words left her mouth, but there was no time to linger on it. It turned to her, a low rumble coming from its chest. Once it fully faced her it also took a step backwards, as though moving closer to the younger girl behind him. "Everything's alright, the fighting's over," the redhead said calmly. It narrowed its eyes at her. Ralena leaned to one side, in an attempt to peak around. "How are you, Yuffie?"

"Oh, I'm peachy," she said sarcastically. Once the wolves showed up, Yuffie hadn't been able to do much of anything in the fight. A fact that surely grated on her. The sounds of moving fabric could be heard, and a green glow of healing magic could be seen haloing the Death Gigas.

Ralena still couldn’t see the girl, the creature had moved to block her view. The redhead cocked her head in confusion, was it… protecting Yuffie? She opened her senses to it and was surprised to find she was right. The beast had seemed to stay near the younger girl in the fight, maybe because it was the last thing that Vincent had been doing before he changed? "It's all ok now," she said gently, holding out a hand, "We're all friends here."

He looked back and forth from her hand to her face. Red eyes clearly judging her intentions. She felt a little hurt that it took him that long, but reminded herself that this both was and wasn't Vincent. Again a low grumble came from it and it gave a brief nod before lightning crackled across its form until it was quickly covered in white light and the shape began to shrink and take on a more familiar outline. Her hand was still outstretched when Vincent looked up from where he knelt on the ground. She gave him a nervous smile as he took her hand to stand up. "He's… intense," she said carefully.

"heh, no kidding," Cid said, walking over to get a closer look at Yuffie's injuries. "Now are you ready to stop lookin' like a marshmallow?"

***

After the fight with the ice golems and bandersnatch pack, Avalanche had grouped back up again. The scouting party had found one of the caves on the Glacier that had been frequently used by travelers and was actually well stocked with firewood, they collectively decided to break there for lunch, warm up a bit and discuss Vincent's new limit break. Openly discussing his transformations was one of the few things that made the man uncomfortable, not that many of them could see the signs. Ralena felt that the way the group talked about it helped though, with a kind of casual caution. No fear or adverse reactions, just a brief tactical discussion on how to handle it in the future.

Afterward they moved on, trying to make the cabin near the base of Gaea's Cliff before nightfall. The mountain trail was tough going for some of them, but as a group they helped each other and for the most part, no one complained.

At one point they came to a fork in the path. Lacking detail, the map was not clear on which direction they needed to take. Having been a guide in the past Tifa made a suggestion to Cloud. "Why don't a few of us go check down that path," she pointed, "While the others take a break here? This spot's sheltered from the wind, so I think it’s a good place for them to rest."

"Why that way?" Cloud asked.

"I'm pretty sure that is _not_ where we need to go. Once we get around that bend I should be able to tell for sure."

Cloud grinned at her, "You're the number one guide from home, I'd be a fool not to listen to you." He missed Tifa's blush as he turned to assessing the state of the rest of the group. Coming to a decision, he asked Vincent and Ralena to join them and the four set off.

It took a few minutes to get around to the bend that Tifa had indicated. She was pleased to see that she had been right, the path ended shortly after another hundred feet or so where it lead into a cave.

On the approach to the bend, Ralena commented that she saw no animal tracks on the path, but did notice a set of human sized prints in the snow that lead into the cave, but not out. Deciding they should check it out and make sure there wasn't someone in need of help, they closed the remaining distance.

The entrance was a comfortable height for Vincent, the tallest among them, to walk in. The first chamber wasn't too big, but after another short tunnel it opened up into a second, larger chamber, that was roughly twenty-five feet long and twice as wide. The space was mostly lit by a hole further up the wall, and the light was reflected about, given a strange blue tint from the ice coated rock walls that it bounced off of. At the far end was a woman in a blue coat, partly under a blanket and sitting on a pile of furs. "Are you ok? Tifa immediately asked, approaching the woman.

The woman looked up surprised, as though she had been sleeping. "Oh yes," she said sleepily, "Please don't worry about me."

Ralena's eyes darted around as Tifa and Cloud talked to the woman, who insisted that she was fine. Something was weird here, her clothes looked too thin. It also looked like she had been here a while, but there was no evidence of a fire… maybe she had a materia to keep warm? This chamber was colder than the smaller one and coated in ice, why pick this place to hold up in? Tifa offered to walk the woman back down to town, but again the woman refused.

"I think we should do as she says and leave her be," Vincent said after a few more failed attempts at offering aid.

"I agree," Ralena said, trying to keep her voice even despite her growing paranoia. She noticed that Cloud had gone oddly still for a moment, and wondered what about this situation triggered his condition. "We can leave her some rations and check on her on the way back if you want."

Finding the whole scenario odd, but finding no reason to say, Tifa apologized for the intrusion and they turned to leave. She and the redhead got to the entrance of the chamber before turning back. Cloud and Vincent had stopped barely ten feet from where they had started and were looking back at the woman in blue. "Guys? You coming?" Tifa asked, when they didn't react, the two women shared a look.

"Oh, I think I'd like them to stay," the stranger said, the tone of her voice suddenly had a predatory hint to it. Her eyes flashing with a blue white light. She stood and the coat she wore slipped off like water. With the cold weather clothes gone, she wasn't quite naked, the blanket now looked like a chiffon cloth that was wrapped around her, but left little to the imagination. There were now clear indications that this woman was not human, her pale blue skin and blonde hair was coated in delicate frost patterns that would have melted on contact if she had a normal body temperature. "Your boys have such interesting eyes." Swaying her hips, she walked up between Vincent and Cloud, and the monster hunter cursed herself for not listening to her instincts sooner.

"They do," Ralena agreed flatly, fully turning back to the woman at the same time as Tifa, they took several steps back into the room and settled their feet into fighting positions. A fierce burst of jealousy sparked in her chest as the woman caressed Vincent's face, especially when he leaned into the hand.

"But like you said," Tifa cracked her knuckles, "They're _our _boys. Let them go."

"Oh, I don't think they want to go." Both men stepped towards the woman moving closer to flank her. Their faces were mostly expressionless and she slowly drew out some of Vincent's long black hair in her pale hand, before turning her attention to Cloud and caressing his cheek with the back of her hand.

Ralena drew her side sword and pointed to the woman with it, trying not to grind her teeth in outrage. The men immediately moved as if to shield the snow woman. "Last chance, release them from your spell," she demanded, green eyes blazing.

The woman grinned from behind them, her hands resting on their shoulders. "No," she said with confidence, "I mean, can you really fight your men?"

Ralena blinked in surprise, then shared another look with Tifa. The snow woman was shocked when they laughed out loud. Tifa sighed in satisfaction, "Every gods-damned day," she smirked.

The woman frowned, "Get them." The men charged, and Ralena intercepted Cloud's blade with her own. Vincent attacked unarmed, which worked out well in Tifa's case. It wasn't entirely surprising, firearms had a limited range of efficacy, in close quarters like this, against an opponent like Tifa, his pistol would be better used as a striking implement than its intended purpose. After several exchanges, Ralena mostly on defense, she decided their emotions, and maybe their minds, seemed shut down, reaching out on an empathic level to get Cloud to stop fighting wasn't working.

Tifa landed a solid roundhouse kick to Vincent's head. While he recovered, the woman smirked, and made a motion like blowing a kiss. A burst of cold air washed over the brawler and frost formed on her clothes as the chill of the magic reached into her bones. As she was shaking off the cold, Vincent came in again for another attack, which Tifa barely dodged. "It looks like I can't just knock him out of it," she muttered.

"Should we call in help?" Ralena asked, closing with Cloud, getting inside his guard and elbowing him in the jaw.

"Only Yuffie and Cait wouldn't be a liability... not sure about Red."

_Because Nanaki is male, but not human_. After a second an idea struck her, "Hey, Tifa…" she ducked under the Buster sword, and swung a leg out under Cloud knocking him down for a moment, the hand to hand sparring sessions were really coming in handy. "I have a dumb idea." She struck him in the gut with the pommel of her sword. Good thing this control somehow made Cloud a _slightly_ less capable fighter, but she was still having trouble disarming him.

With Cloud knocked down, the woman used her frost breath against the redhead, since she had seen it used before she managed to dodge enough so that only her left side was hit.

"How dumb?" Tifa dodged a kick from Vincent, those sabatons would be nasty if she let it connect.

"Real dumb. Switch?"

"Sure," Tifa got under a punch and threw Vincent over her shoulder, with him down on the ground, both of the women retreated back from their opponents. They stopped next to each other, close to the far wall of the cave. Ralena sheathed her weapons, and quickly removed her gloves, green eyes alight once again.

As another frost breath came in, the women broke into opposite directions and closed with their new targets. Tifa charged in on Cloud, as he swung his sword across she slid under the blade and again took his feet out from under him. Her best delay tactic with the SOLDIER was to keep him off balance, as it took time and effort to redirect the weight of a sword like his.

The redhead closed with Vincent just as quickly. Trying to keep him occupied and focus her intent at the same time. He had her on the ropes fairly quickly, he always was better at hand to hand than she. She attempted to throw a right hook and he caught it with his gauntlet, moving forward, his weight bared down on her. She almost lost her concentration as she slammed into the ground. On her back, with her right wrist in his left hand she found herself happy that his gauntlet didn't cover his palms, there was a chance this was going to hurt. She grinned, in order to make sure that this worked, for the intensity she wanted to impart, she needed to touch Vincent directly. Summoning a memory of the primal savagery she felt when he shifted into the Galian Beast she managed to get her other hand free, put it on his face and channeled it into him. _Sorry, Vincent, we need you to tag out_.

For an instant she saw his expression clear then a growl escaped his lips and his grip on her wrist tightened. She winced in pain as the change took him. She'd never had an up close up look of his change before. She doubted anyone had. A brief sense of relief went through her when no lightning struck, she wasn't sure this would have worked with the newer Death Gigas.

His canines sharpened and elongated as his face stretched forward and purple fur began to grow out of his skin. Gritting his teeth he ducked his head down, causing her to awkwardly shift herself sideways to keep from being impaled by the horns growing out from under his bandana, scraping by her shoulders. The red of his red bandana seemed to bleed over his hair, which became the scarlet mane. It was difficult to maneuver with his growing weight over her and his hand still tight on her wrist, squeezing harder in the pain of the change.

When the transformation was complete, the Galian Beast looked up at her, slight confusion in its gaze, this was not how it was normally summoned. It backed off of her and she brought herself up to her feet, cradling her injured wrist against her chest.

Snow woman stared on, shrieking in surprise, "What… what did you do to him!?"

Trying not to look winded from the effort that took and the pain in her arm, she grinned at the woman, "You didn't think red eyes was normal did you?" Ralena pointed at her, "Ulster, attack." The Galian Beast, snapped its attention to where she pointed at the snow woman and growled. Still in shock, his target took a few steps back.

Seeing the beast charge the pale woman, Ralena didn't have time to be concerned about it. Drawing her sword alone, since her right hand didn't seem to want to move without pain, she watched the other two fighting, looking for an opportunity to assist Tifa should she need it. Normally fighting barehanded against someone with a weapon was difficult, but it actually benefitted Tifa that Cloud's sword was so massive, there was a lot of flat area for her to contact if necessary and it was easy for her to get inside his guard.

The Galian Beast, had no trouble with his quarry. It moved so quickly and with such ferocity that she barely managed to hit him with her ice breath before it was upon her. As the woman's clear blood frosted on the ground and her scream was reduced to a gurgle Cloud's strikes slowed and he stopped attacking.

"Well, that was… fun. You ok?" Tifa asked, nodding towards Ralena's arm.

She shrugged, "Should probably check it out before healing, just to be safe."

Cloud blinked, looking around, confused, "What happened? Why is the lady dead and… blue?"

He saw the purple beast walk passed him, shaking off some frost then crouch next to the redhead. It sniffed at her arm and whined apologetically. She gave it a smile and patted its head with her good hand.

"She was a monster and charmed you two," Tifa said. "I'm going to call the others in, we can shelter from the winds while Yuffie looks at her arm." She didn't have to go far, at the sound of fighting and the scream they were already heading over.

Several minutes later, Yuffie was still examining Ralena's forearm by the time Vincent changed back, the other form shedding off of him in whiffs of brimstone smoke. There was a red bruise the size of his hand on her forearm and several cuts from when his fingers had become claws. "I think there might be a fracture in the bone, I'll have to heal slowly at first to make sure it sets right," Yuffie said. Ralena agreed with the assessment, and sat as still as possible.

The redhead looked over at Vincent, noting his expression. "Sorry," she said, beating him to it. He seemed surprised that she was apologizing to him. "I assumed it would break her spell, I'll understand if you're mad about it." She knew how he felt about his transformations, he never liked it and she wasn't sure he would forgive her for forcing it upon him.

"Seems you were right, but…" he gestured to her arm. She gave him a serious look and told him it was her fault for letting him pin her in the first place.

"Oh god!" Yuffie sighed, momentarily pausing the treatment to roll her eyes, "We get it! You're both sorry, and you don't blame each other."

They both looked to the girl in surprise, then looked away.

At Yuffie's comment, Cid looked up from across the cave where he had found some bones under the furs, and shook his head at the pair. "Must be fucking blind," he muttered.

***

She was snatching up what pieces she could find. They were scattered, and many of the pieces had gone, already reborn into parts of new beings, new lives. But there were still some to be had.

Her sky-eyed sweetheart traveled along beside her. Having been human, it was harder for him to look through the Lifestream, but he was still sharp-eyed enough to occasionally spot what they were looking for.

It wouldn't be enough to stop him, she honestly wasn't sure what she was trying to accomplish, maybe she hoped she could slow him down, to cause him to doubt. The instinctual desire of Jenova to consume the planet had taken him over, but if she could find enough… maybe something else would happen? She had to do this quickly, she had to do this while his body was still forming, still encased within its materia cocoon, _before_ he got the Black Materia. If he had that, the power of it would prevent her from reaching him.

Assuming anyone could.

***

They made it to the cabin just before nightfall, encouraged by the warm firelight visible through a window and smoke rising from the chimney. Tired and chilled, Avalanche was more than happy to come into the simple space. Holzoff, a climber who manned the cabin, welcomed them in and quickly got out some cookware and stoked the fire for them to properly heat what food they had brought with them.

When they explained where they were heading the man gave doubtful looks to the mismatched crew. He emphasized the difficulty of the climb, and gave them a few helpful pointers that would no doubt come in use later. When they informed him that they would rather fight monsters in the caves than make the climb more difficult he seemed to note their weapons and reassess their chances of success. "If you're capable of fighting your way up through the caves then it will make _the climb_ easier. But they aren't mapped and the monsters are pretty thick in there."

As the only three physically enhanced individuals it was decided that, Cloud, Vincent and Ralena would be the first group to scale the cliff and set the lines for others to follow up. Tifa called foul at not being included at first. While the three leading were physically stronger and could better deal with the cold, their mountain climbing skills were more hiking oriented, rather than actual climbing. Holzoff insisted the following group needed a strong and more experienced climber to lead them up, especially since one member was a quadruped and another would have difficulty gripping with only one hand. At which point Barret pointed out that he and Cid had rigged a hook onto his gun, possibly allowing for a better grip since he didn't have to worry about his fingers giving out. The mountain climber quickly realized this group would not do with being told that they were incapable of anything.

Early the next morning they set out. As the trio spearheading the climb started up, the frigid air and wind bit at what little exposed skin the climbers had, and at every ledge they could stand on they took a little time to try and warm up and shake out their strained limbs. By the time they made it to a cave, the first of many, all of which were coated in ice, they were glad to find mostly-walkable inclines.

They waited in that first cave for the others to join them, and discussed with them about how they would mark the path ahead. Sometimes the rear group would catch up with the three in the lead while they were fighting monsters in the caves. When this happened they would take point to distribute the strain of combat until it was time to climb the exterior again. It was slow going, even with as little rest as the Mako enhanced trio allowed themselves. They had to find a path that their friends could more easily follow, and painful backtracking was a common occurrence.

Finally, Cloud, Vincent and Ralena clawed their way to the top of the cliff, and got themselves onto the lip of the Northern Crater. If the climb and the altitude hadn't already done it, the sight before them could have been described as breathtaking.

The crater was massive, the diameter easily matched that of Midgar. A raised ring of rock in the center was surrounded by a tornado of Mako that surrounded a geyser of the same planet's energy. Slightly glowing plumes of green-white liquid and energy swirled and burst up from the ground, flying hundreds of feet into the air. The fact that they could see it from this distance made it a nearly mind boggling scale.

The floor of the crater was almost entirely covered in a thick ground fog that revealed the swirling air currents that were, somehow, going in the opposite direction of the Lifestream tornado. A number of stone spires jutted up out of the ground, some of them tall enough to be seen sticking out of the fog. The ground that was visible beneath had giant cracks radiating out from the center. A quick look with the binoculars verified that many of those crevices were deep enough to be potentially fatal.

"Well… shit," Ralena muttered.

"Yeah," Cloud agreed, "This is gonna suck."

***

"So… they were here?" he asked slowly. Hopefully she would likewise slow down with her explanation this time.

"Yes, sir!" the blonde said enthusiastically.

"Aaaand what were they doing?"

"Sir?"

Reno sighed and ran his hand down the side of his face. He had shown up at the ShinRa property in Icicle Inn to pick up Elena and take her to the Highwind. Rufus wanted all three of the Turks on hand in case there was trouble in the crater. The blonde had been ready and was bouncing on her toes about the group that had passed through town. "Avalanche was here," he reiterated, "…what were they doing?"

"I... I'm not sure."

"Did you see them?"

"Yes… no.. Only two of them, Barret Wallace and Cid Highwind. They were sitting at the bar."

"And what did you do?"

"I confronted them about Tseng, which the two of them claimed not to know about. So I left, picked up some troops and went to look for Cloud Strife, starting at the Inn."

Oh god, she was bothering with their full names… "Why?" he asked, exasperated. He could see the look on her face. She was realizing that she hadn't done the right thing at the time and now that Reno was asking her about it, there were numerous actions that she should have taken going through her head. He waved a hand dismissively. "Look it doesn’t matter right now. Did you at least get all of the intel that Rufus wanted?"

"Yes!" she said, patting her laptop bag. "Backups were sent to my office with the retrieval team as well."

"Anything good?"

Her face went from proud to grim, "Yes… and I haven't had a chance to review all of it in detail."

"Yeeeaaah… we got that bit of video you sent ahead, try and stay away from Hojo alright? At least don't talk around him. As far as anyone else is concerned you were here to keep an eye out for Avalanche and report where they went and when. Now come on, you gotta give your report in an hour and I'm freezin' my nuts off out here."

***

The Cetra had failed the planet, and now the last of those bleeding hearts was dead.

In his past life he had seen it, but he hadn't realized what it had meant until he found his mother. He hadn't seen the big picture. Hadn't realized what humans, the sister race of the Cetra, had become.

Parasites of the planet.

Most humans were just weak and careless, most thought themselves too small. Not seeing the impact they had as part of the writhing swarm that destroyed their habitat. They blindly followed other greedy, powerful humans without a second thought.

Most humans were cattle, sheep. Worthless cogs that helped the machine move along. Sucking the planet dry for a few more hours of light in the darkness, and the ability to run around in a circle faster.

He would wipe humanity off of the face of Gaea.

But something was… off.

There was a feeling he shouldn't have, something needling at the back of his mind. It must be something that Cetra bitch brought with her into the Lifestream. Try as he might, he couldn't do away with her. Her spirit moved through the Lifestream like a fish, by comparison he was still a human. She Also didn't fade like a human, her will was too strong, and there was another one with her. Someone familiar that he had once dubbed both comrade and traitor. His essence circled her like a sleepless guardian.

The puppy had grown fangs.

It wouldn't matter, Cloud was on his way, and he was the key to the Black Materia.

When this was done he would become the planet, an entity that would live for eons upon eons, he would shape the world anew and rid it of the troublesome human race. Everything was going according to plan.

So why did he feel like something was wrong?

Green Mako eyes.

He sneered inwardly, something about that woman pissed him off. Part of him didn’t want to hurt her and that would not do. When he rebuilt himself he had shed his humanity, he let the weak parts of his soul remain within Lifestream. It must have been a remnant, something about her reminded him of something he had sought to protect once upon a time.

There was_ no one_ worth protecting in the world that created him.


	18. The Promised Devil

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Cold; ShinRa Approaches, Return to Me; The Shape of DEATH; The WEAPON Room; Hard Reset; Memoriae Occultos; Cut Strings;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am going to start also referring to SOLDIERS as S-1(first class), S-2 (Second Class), and S-3's (third class), in addition to how they are canonically referred to. Mostly because I am tired of writing it out "X Class SOLDIER" all of the time. (US Navy Ranks are are Letter-Number combos, so I figure it works)

Since they had crested Gaea's Cliff near nightfall, it was agreed that they should try to sleep again before continuing onward. This meant sleeping in the warmest and smallest chamber that would fit all of them. They were lucky to find a space that wasn't completely covered in ice, and a few fire spells were utilized to melt and evaporate the rest and warm up the space to slightly above freezing.

Unshrinking some firewood they brought with them, they set up a small fire just outside the entrance to ward off creatures and heat rocks to bring back in for warmth. They couldn't risk a fire in their small cave as it lacked any ventilation.

Thankfully, Cait Sith was able to post his Mog outside the entrance in a sentry mode. Apparently this was not an often used feature as several members were wary about how good it was, but with as tired and cold as they were no one could manage to care.

Ralena tried to put her mind at ease and sleep. She tried to look on the bright side. They were lucky they had a chance to sleep at all and in a space that there were able to make, relatively speaking, warm. She shouldn't complain. She wasn't taking the cold nearly as badly as the others, especially Yuffie. The girl had been so miserable that Nanaki had taken pity on her, and allowed her to curl up against him to sleep. Admittedly that was as much for space, the chamber they found was about the same size as the first cabin Ralena and Vincent shared with Avalanche.

She should be grateful they could rest.

But as she tried to sleep under the blankets, and saw the Wutai girl curled up against the big red cat. She couldn't help but think about how warm it had been when she woke up under Vincent's cloak in the cave outside Midgar. She blushed, which did warm her cheeks a little, she pulled her face down under her covers. They hadn't even shared a room since rejoining the others and she imagined that she missed his familiar presence in her sleep. She felt like she had less intense nightmares when he was nearby…

_There's no time for that kind of stuff right now_, she scolded herself. With everything going on since the temple she hadn't thought about it. But being in this position again, cold and unable to sleep in a cave. It made her think of laying against his firm chest with his arms and legs on either side of her. Right now he was sleeping sitting propped up against the wall in the same way he always seemed to do when there was limited room. The same position he had been in then too. She just wanted to crawl over and surround herself in him. He was close enough that she could easily reach out and touch his leg.

If she shrunk any further into her sleeping bag there would be no sign of her except the lump she made beneath it. He probably wouldn't begrudge her for it either. It was _practical_ to get the best rest she could before going into the crater tomorrow. After all they were going to battle and it was silly to think that an area full of so much Mako energy wasn't crawling with monsters. He cared about her, sure, but they were friends. They seemed to be ridiculously close friends. She never heard of a friendship that was like theirs. Then again, the Telly's didn't have a TV, so maybe she was just ill informed.

It was fine, being friends had been _perfectly fine_. Then some hussy enchantress monster had to go and want him. Seeing another woman touch him like that had made her blood boil. Then Tifa had called Vincent and Cloud "our boys" which rang with a certainty within her she never expected. Now, someone had taken the lampshade off of the brass clawed elephant that was lurking in her heart, and she didn't know what to do about it.

Since they met he had always been there. The one to pull her out of the spirals her abilities sent her down. He had been the first thing she saw every time she had gotten lost so far. She tried to tell herself it was a coincidence. Any of the others would have done the same. He... just happened to be the one that was there, his crimson eyes watching her with gentle concern, never prying and patiently waiting for her to put her thoughts together.

Her eyes burned with the threat of tears, and the idea of crying made her angry. She was a grown woman dammit, she wasn't going to cry about this. It was just because there was too much going on right now. Because they had lost Aerith, because _Sephiroth_ had killed her. Because they had to keep going, because they had to stop him. Because of Jenova - she stopped those thoughts. She couldn't let any of that distract her now, she tried to pack away the fear and the pain. She thought that dealing with some of it already would have made it easier to save for later. But of course something had to slip out and it had to be the thought and disappointment about how she and Vincent were _friends._ Ugh, she didn’t know she could hate a word so much.

She suddenly noticed she could see in the dark space beneath her covers, illuminated by the pale green light of her own eyes. She took a deep breath and closed her eyes. Shutting down her senses and trying to calm herself. She could only assume that she had been projecting, since she didn't feel anything from the sleeping others. Hopefully, it didn’t result in overly emotional dreams for them. "Won't be of any use if you don't sleep, Ralena," she whispered to herself, echoing words he had said to her that night.

She reached out to Yuffie with her senses, trying to leech off a bit of the contentment and peace that she felt in her slumber. It was faint, but enough to help her wrangle her thoughts and help her to get to sleep.

***

Crimson eyes watched the red hair disappear further under the covers. He hadn't been awake, exactly, but this environment made him sleep extremely lightly. He couldn't be sure what exactly had woken him, but the restless redhead was likely the culprit. For a woman so used to camping he found it strange that she would have trouble sleeping.

Then the wave of emotion hit him.

Anger, sadness, disappointment, determination, annoyance.

After a minute it there was a sudden burst of embarrassment and it cut off as quickly as it had come. He frowned. The last part was likely her realizing she was projecting. Otherwise he could only assume that her mind had starting thinking about recent events. He wanted to comfort her, but he couldn't imagine a way to do it in the crowded space. He didn't think he was good with those kinds of words. At least not something short enough that he wouldn’t risk waking the others with conversation.

He heard her whisper to herself and a thought came to mind. They would hear no end of it from the others, but maybe it would be worth it. If she hadn't gotten herself to sleep in the next ten minutes or so, maybe he would call her over like he had that night in the cave.

She must have pulled it together or exhaustion won out, because shortly after he had come to the decision he noticed that her breathing had evened out in a telltale sign of sleep.

For some reason he felt disappointed.

***

Standing on the bridge of the Highwind, Reno considered the plan as they approached the crater. Himself and a small unit of first and second class SOLDIERs, S-1's and S-2's, were going to be deployed to escort Rufus, Scarlet and Hojo into the crater. In the meantime, Heidegger, of all people, was about to be dropped off to set up a camp just outside the base of the crater. Of course, Rude and a few Firsts were going with him and they would probably do the real work. Apparently, they planned on using a drilling machine to dig a tunnel through the wall of the crater for easier passage in the future. An idea that seemed ill-conceived for reasons Reno wasn't sure of yet. The machine somehow utilized an earth materia to lessen the strain on the machine itself, which he guessed was hunky dory. But it would still take over a week for the tunnel to be drilled. Elena would stay on the airship, so she could go wherever she might be needed quickly.

Blue eyes tracked over to his boss. Rufus seemed to be on a high from finding this "Promised Land" everyone had been going on about. All Reno could see was a massive Mako geyser, useful sure, but figuring out what to do with something like that wasn't the kind of thing he was good at.

This wasn't about finding the Promised Land, he'd known his boss since they were barely teens. This was about finding what his father had been looking for, about getting it instead of him. Rufus had long been plotting against his father and had resented the man for much of his life. Old man Shinra wasn't abusive or anything like that, and Reno suspected that the man had cared for his son to some degree. But he had always seemed to put success and business first, which had always rubbed the younger man the wrong way. He also always refused to accept failure or even plan for it. Once Rufus started to see more efficient ways to bring about better results, the senior's perceived incompetence became another sore point for the younger man. Rufus couldn't see it yet, but he was still acting in the shadow of his old man, and Reno couldn't wait until his boss really came into his own.

As one of the department heads, it was noticeable that Reeve was absent. But there were good reasons for that. Mostly that he was spying on Avalanche and that he was good enough at his job that he could be left alone. He also had competent underlings, some of which were on board to perform an initial survey, should they find the promised land.

His thoughts were interrupted by Scarlet's piercing laughter and he resisted the urge to wince. Instead, Reno turned away and found himself looking at the hunched figure standing by his partner. He never had a good feeling about the man, and while he understood _why_ Hojo was here, that didn't mean he had to like it. Unfortunately, they needed his expertise on the subject of Jenova and Sephiroth. At least Rufus was having Elena look into the man's past and that of the science department around the time of the inception of the Jenova Project. That investigation was already yielding interesting, but not surprising, results.

There were a lot of things going on right now. The Jenova Project, The Promised Land, Sephiroth, The Black Materia, Rufus' world tour. Not to mention Reno's own personal side mission. They could all potentially come together in that big hole in the ground. There was no way they were getting out of this without something blowing up.

***

Avalanche was able to carefully walk down the steep incline down into the crater with little issue. At least it was warmer in here, allowing them to shed the thickest of their cold-weather clothes.

The significance of this place was palpable. This was a scar on the planet from over two millennia ago. It was a scary thought to think that if Sephiroth managed to summon Meteor, the next crater would be bigger.

For the most part, they stuck together, but Cloud designated a spearhead group, and a rearguard, who would mark the way they had come so that they could navigate out quickly and help keep an eye out for other monsters that might come in from behind.

Ralena was distracted by the atmosphere of the place, she felt as though it was constantly pushing down on her. She managed to get through in combat and focus on the fight, but the times in between had her in a haze. Maybe it was the planet's energy roiling around so close beneath and above them. Afterall, Lifestream was the souls of the departed, all of their memories and emotions, but it was all in fragments. It was like being in the middle of hundreds of static filled TVs that had the volume just loud enough that you could hear them, and snippets of the different shows could be heard. It was grating upon her nerves and had her on edge the entire time.

When they came upon the black robed experiments that were dead, dying or jumping off into chasms below, Ralena had expected it to hit her worse than it did. But the static of place drowned out most of it. It was still bad, but the comparatively low intensity of the hopeless devotion and fading life made it bearable. The part that bothered her more was their apparent lack of free will or a desire to live.

It was a morbid path of breadcrumbs, but all of the robed figures were on their way to Sephiroth, so there was little doubt they were headed in the right direction. Eventually, after everyone got through a chasm that had extremely strong gusts of wind capable of carrying them away, Ralena decided it was time to swap out with someone in the rearguard. She assured them that she was alright, but she wasn't alert for ambush and didn't feel at her best. "Sounds like me on allergy meds," Cid had said with a companionable grin, offering to take her spot.

"While we're taking a break, does anyone else want to switch?" Cloud asked, he knew not everyone was as invested in this as he was, and the toll on the spearhead group was a bit more. He looked forward and they could see a cave entrance going down into tunnels below, shadows of robed figures could be seen ahead of them. There was no way he wasn't going in first, and Tifa was the same, but he wasn't going to push anyone past their breaking point if he could help it.

Almost reluctantly, Barret raised a hand, "You wanna take my spot, Vincent?" It was generally agreed that when splitting up that the two men with guns were usually in opposite groups.

Cloud noticed Vincent look at the redhead for a moment, before she gave him a non-verbal response that Cloud took to mean "_I'll be ok._" He didn't know when he realized it, but he knew that Vincent acted as a kind of anchor for the empath at times. He wondered briefly if this was a role any of them could do, and why she hadn't asked anyone else. When they had more time, he would want to address it. Whenever they touched base with rearguard he'd have to make a note of her condition. If she started to get worse, he'd make sure to put the gunman back with her.

_Return to me._

Cloud winced. They were headed in the right direction, alright. Now if Sephiroth would just shut up in the meantime that would be great.

***

As Vincent moved with the forward group, he could again feel Chaos stirring. He knew the robed figures had Jenova cells within them, and that Chaos wanted it obliterated. It was mildly distracting, but he tried not to think about it too much. They had left the rear guard some minutes ago. Having passed through a chamber with multiple exits, Barret wanted to make sure that there was nothing threatening in the other tunnels. If there was, he clearly planned on shooting it.

As they moved forward he noted the gaps in the cave walls, beyond which swirled wild green Mako. The space was very roughly shaped and tall. The ceiling was so high in places he wasn't sure if there might actually be a passage out, though it clearly wasn't a straight shot. The air felt alive and almost viscous. Like misty, wet air near a waterfall, the air here was thick with the energies of Lifestream.

They came around a corner in the tunnel and found Sephiroth standing in front of two of the robed figures, cutting them down.

Given the quick turn in the tunnel Vincent had little hope for surprise. That was dashed to pieces the moment Cloud got his thoughts back in gear. "Sephiroth!!" he yelled, rushing forward and taking up a guard position. "This is the end!"

Sephiroth turned to face them. His skin had scaly white patches and it was odd to note that a similar pattern covered his jacket as well. He nonchalantly lifted his right hand and turned it in front of his face, inspecting it casually. The fingers flexed in black gloves and he turned to Cloud with a sinister smile. His green cat-like eyes were less vibrant then they had once been, as though they were covered with a dull film. "You're right, this is the end of this body's usefulness." His eyes began to glow red and a sudden burst of light filled their vision and sent a spike of pain through their heads, causing all of them to shut their eyes.

When their vision cleared, Sephiroth was gone. Cloud gritted his teeth in frustration, "He's gone!?"

"He might still be nearby…" Tifa said warily, moving up to take a defensive position on Cloud's left, and Cid moved up opposite her.

_Our purpose is to deliver the Black materia to our master._

"Our..." again, Cloud winced, trying to force out the foreign thoughts.

"Stay alert." Vincent warned, cocking his pistol. "You never know when Sephiroth might appear."

_Those who carry Jenova's cells..._

"…Master?" Cloud whispered, eyes glazed and looking forward into the cave ahead. Light came from within it. The light of the planet. Which Sephiroth-

_Of course... Sephiroth… our master_

He shook his head violently, earning a glance from the others. _Not my master,_ Cloud thought. _Not that murderer._

He was answered by a chorus of mad giggles and laughter in his head. His jaw clenched. Suddenly his eyes went wide in realization, this was a distr-

Sephiroth came in from above and swung his blade at their backs. Vincent was not positioned so that he could be struck in the swing, but Sephiroth managed to land a boot in his chest upon landing nonetheless. The attack knocked all four of them to the ground. It was more than just the strike, there was a bit of magic in it that coursed over their bodies, making it difficult to move. Black boots sounded over the rock as he walked calmly through them as they struggled to pull themselves up. When his back was to all of them he took a deep, satisfied breath. Yes, it was time for the old to go. Fresh, vigorous Jenova cells were waiting to shed this form like a snake skin. He grinned, even dying, the remains of this form would fight viciously.

The silver haired general turned, his sword singing through the air in a dramatic gesture. As he did, the outside of his form, his clothes, his skin, even his hair bubbled out and expanded grotesquely into the shape of Jenova.

The creature was the same basic shape as before, but now it was a sickly dull green color. Much of the organic patterning on it was washed out, as if its skin was swollen in decay. In the middle of its torso, it looked like the yellow skin had been unzipped and exposed gory red flesh. Now, only one tendril came out of its back, thick, bloated and dripping red ichor. The head now had a semblance of a face. There was a bizarrely large maw full of long thin teeth, like that of a deep sea predator, flanked by two tusks that ended above its sunken black eyes. Its "shoulders" now hand a line of large yellow orche orbs, or boils down the limbs, one of which now ended in a stump. The other limb, instead of ending in a wing-like structure now had a massive warped hand, larger than its torso. The digits looked like fingers that were put in the wrong place and two of them ended in massive hooked claws. It stank of burning chemicals and decay.

Once formed, it immediately opened its maw and hot red flame sprayed out, causing Cloud and the others to try to scatter as they had only just gotten back to their feet. All four of them suffered some burns from the breath, and most of them took a moment to find cover. The SOLDIER, on the other hand, immediately rushed in, slashing towards the neck of the beast. It swung its massive hand forward, faster than something that large should move. The blonde had to twist his body to avoid major injury, but still got slashed in the side by one of the claws.

As Cloud pulled back, Vincent let loose with several rounds. Aiming for the tentacle that swung towards Cid. The pilot cursed, bringing up his spear to block the blow, only for the force of it to still throw him back into the cave wall. A curse escaped the man's lips and he landed hard on the ground, barely staying on his feet.

Tifa shouted and moved in, Cloud close behind, she jumped up upon a rock formation and launched herself further up, intent on coming at the creature from above. As Cloud's strike at the torso was blocked, she landed hard, heels first onto the back of Jenova's neck. Knowing better than too stay so close for long, the brawler launched off again. When she touched the ground a red beam of energy struck her from the being's stump, and left a sizzling burn on her arm from her attempt to block.

Vincent timed his shots, aiming for what was, potentially, weak spots in the thing's face and torso when his comrades were not in the way. He felt Chaos itching to get out. It wasn't as painful as before, probably because they had been expecting Jenova this time. Still, it pulled and strained at its bonds, and Vincent could feel the entity's desire to destroy. _Shut up, Chaos,_ he muttered mentally, _you're distracting me_.

Surprisingly, this worked to a degree and while the entity did not go silent, it did stop pulling so painfully.

As he moved to unsling his rifle the tentacle shot out towards Vincent, he started to dodge backwards, out of its apparent reach. However, it followed his path with deceptive speed and elasticity stretching out to reach him. He braced for the impact and his vision filled with red. The viscous limb retracted quickly as the side-sword took a slice out of it. The red hair moved out of his vision as Ralena chased the tendril back a few feet, swinging madly the whole way. A blur of dusky red fur ran by him, charging towards the beast, dodging another crimson beam of light from the creature's stump on the way in. Green light moved forward as Yuffie sent healing magic towards Cloud, Cid and Tifa in the front.

"We got'cha bitch!" Barret shouted stepping up and firing.

Vincent leveled his rifle in the creature's direction. Out of the corner of his vision he saw Ralena take a step back to his side, her legs shaking.

The moment Ralena sensed Jenova's presence she had sprinted down the tunnel towards the sensation, despite everything her body was telling her. They last time they fought it, everyone had been there and it was hard going. Adrenaline had gotten her this close, but Ralena was still too afraid to get into contact with the alien creature. She hated it, but this time she had a plan to work around it. She put Barrier spells up around the group as Yuffie finished healing. The redhead would probably drain most of her mana in this fight, but she would be damned if she was going to be useless again. Now that the protections she could offer were up, Ralena focused on the red orb embedded in the pommel of her sword. Again, she sensed the line of intent from the creature, but that wasn't important right now.

Rejuvenated by both the healing and the arrival of their friends, Cloud and the others renewed their attacks. The SOLDIER and captain jumped in at the same time, bringing their weapons down in near unison. Jenova made a move to swipe at them, but Tifa and Nanaki struck it lower, throwing off the attack. Sword and spear entered the oddly gelatin like flesh. Cid sneered as he retracted his weapon from a yellow blister and found it covered in foul smelling ichor.

"Incoming!" Yuffie shouted, the fighters backed up in response, Yuffie and Cait Sith brought down _Fire_ and _Ice_ spells upon the alien. This was shortly followed up with her Shuriken and another round of gunfire. A burst of flaming wind went sailing out towards the back ranks, and they scattered, Barret grabbed the shaky redhead and took her with him behind a rock, nearly breaking her concentration.

Lightning flashed behind and Odin came riding in from above them. Charging forward and striking at the alien with his lance. As it swung at the summon, the fighters followed it in to again chip away at the decaying, but oddly tenacious creature.

Cid moved in, twisting to avoid getting smacked by the gory red tendril. He nearly lost his balance, but Tifa grabbed the haft of his spear, and helped launch him back towards Jenova. Meanwhile Cloud slashed against the base and Red XIII charged it with his Bloodfang, trailing red light and healing a bit himself.

There were a few more rapid fire exchanges between the creature and the frontline fighters as Odin came back around, the summon was having difficulty turning his massive six-legged charger in this tall but narrow space. After the next attack, Ralena would let it go. When the lance of the summon struck it from behind, Cloud called for the melee to pull back, allowing the range and magic attacks to strike unimpeded.

Jenova screeched and let out its fire breath and beam attack in quick succession. The magic barriers helped, but they were shattered by the sudden ferocity of the attacks. Ralena quickly moved to re-cast the destroyed shields as Odin faded and Vincent and Barret unloaded on the monster. Then she joined Cait Sith's mog and stood guard in front of the ranged attackers and defended against incoming physical attacks.

Yuffie's shuriken and several of Cait Sith's dice bombs flew in towards it, followed closely by Cloud and the others moving in again. While Avalanche still wasn't exactly coordinated, when the lone target was this large, it was fairly easy to stay out of each other's way. After several attacks Cloud again called for them to pull back and allow the back ranks to pummel it and heal the frontline fighters.

It was difficult to determine who got the finishing blow. With four of them moving in to attack at once, all they knew for sure was that its death cry sliced through their minds like a buzz saw.

After the body stopped spasming, Vincent gave into one demand Chaos had. He raised a hand and sent a _Fire_ spell out to consume the remains. It was probably a moot point, as it seemed obvious this version of it was made of dying remains.

"Oh, kami, that _stinks!_" Yuffie said, bringing a hand up over her nose.

"Apologies," Vincent said, still pouring out flame, "But it seems this could come back if we don't properly dispose of it."

Cloud watched the fire burn away the remains. It was almost like he could faintly feel something of it fade, like listening to soap bubbles pop. "Jenova's cells…" he muttered. He looked up, clearly realizing something and turned to Tifa, "That's what this is all about. The Jenova Reunion."

"What reunion?" Cid asked, "This ain't Highschool."

"Hold on," Tifa said, somehow following Cloud's line of reasoning. "Are you saying that what we've been following this whole time wasn't the real Sephiroth?"

"Wait… what?" Ralena asked, desperately wishing that she had all of her wits about her.

"I'll explain later." Cloud said, "Right now all I care is beating Sephiroth, and he's not that far." He pointed to the tunnel entrance ahead of them.

"But what about…" Tifa trailed off as it looked like Cloud's attention was laser focused elsewhere.

"It was Jenova's body," Vincent supplied, putting the pieces together with that last hint from Cloud. The blonde nodded to the gunman.

"You mean that headless thing from the tower?" Barret asked.

"It's a shapeshifter," the gunman said, "The recordings told us as much."

"Somehow, Sephiroth tapped into it. Like… he became the new brain," the empath said, suddenly realizing what that connection between him and Jenova she felt was. The commanding message from the controller of a hive mind. She wasn't sure how to feel about Sephiroth being the source. "I could feel the… link back to the him, leading that way." She nodded the same way Cloud indicated. "It goes out of my range… but like Cloud said, I think he's nearby."

As the magical flames faded, Cloud stepped forward to a small lump in the ash that was being brushed away in the currents of air around them. Tentatively, in case it was too hot, Cloud picked up the dark orb. This was the second time he held it, and it filled him with the same ominous sensations as before. "The Black Materia is ours again. Now we just have to defeat Sephiroth and that'll be the end of it."

He made it sound so easy.

Vincent looked doubtful, there was no way this was going to be that simple.

"We'd better not take the Black Materia any further," Tifa suggested warily, "Just in case."

"I know Tifa and I are going ahead, Nanaki, will you come with us?" Cloud suspected there wouldn't be much room for range fire in the caves ahead, and from what he remembered, Sephiroth was fast enough to close the distance those combatants pretty quickly anyway.

The feline nodded, "It would be an honor to fight this enemy with you."

"I'll go!" Yuffie said. Cloud nodded at the teen. He had been her age when he first faced off against Sephiroth, so there was no way he would hold that against her. While he was concerned about range fighters, she had picked up a new weapon that was manageable in melee as well. All that and her skill in magic and healing, Yuffie was currently a jack-of-all trades when it came to combat capability.

Ralena was a little relieved that Cloud didn't ask her to go. She wanted to, but they both knew she couldn't. The constant pressure of this place was too much. Fighting monsters was one thing, but she wasn't in top shape if they were to fight the real Sephiroth, she would only get in the way.

Cloud looked to Barret, holding the smooth black orb out to him, "Barret, I know I can trust you with this."

The larger man let out an explosive breath, then reached out to take it. "Damn, man! ...Pressure's on now."

While they both had hands on it, Cloud looked him in the eye, deadly serious. "Don't give it to _anyone_. I'm counting on you."

"Shit, you and everyone else." He heaved a deep breath, "But I always did want to save the world."

There were a few minutes where they quickly discussed and swapped out some materia. Vincent took the chance to take Tifa aside. "I hope you know what you are going to say to him," He said seriously, "Be blunt if you have to. You no longer have the luxury of time."

She looked in the direction of the blonde and swallowed. He had been muttering to himself a lot since they came across the first of the clones. Nothing that was intelligible to her, but it was surely a sign that things were coming to a head. She nodded grimly to Vincent, "I'll take care of him," she said, "We won't lose him too."

***

"It's amazing!" Scarlet marveled as she moved to the wall of the chamber as quickly as her heels would allow. She touched it and her smile became manic with greed, "It's all Materia!!"

Reno wasn't sure about that. The woman was clearly suffering from Materia fever, but he was staring at the shapes distorted within the crystalline walls. They were too consistent to be bands of minerals or the like. Perhaps there were old buildings inside? There were still some stone portions of the walls as well. He looked up and noted the strange root-like structure in the ceiling, cradling a large round piece of materia in the center. He had seen no other signs of plant life within the crater, and felt that this was somehow important.

"The outside is rich with mako energy. The inside is a treasure trove of Materia." Rufus grinned, "This truly is the Promised Land. Everything is as I imagined it to be. Isn't it splendid?" He looked back at the last of them to enter the chamber.

Soft soled shoes walked in, carrying their lab coat wearing owner. "There is no such thing as the Promised Land. It's a legend... an old wives tale... it's utterly ridiculous." For fuck's sake, Hojo could be such a buzzkill. Reno rolled his eyes. It didn't matter if this was the infamous "Promised Land" or not, it was still everything the boss wanted.

Rufus leveled his gaze at the older man, "It is that kind of dullness that makes you a second-rate scientist." Hojo's expression was priceless and Reno wished he could have gotten a picture of it.

The ground began to shake under his feet and Reno moved closer to his boss in case of falling debris. Scarlet stepped back from the materia wall she stood by, "Something is moving inside of the wall!"

She wasn't wrong. Squinting at the wall, Reno heard a round of gasps fill the room as an eye at least as tall as himself blinked a few times before shutting again. Holy Fuck! The shapes in the wall were _alive_!?

"What is that?" Rufus asked, masking his surprise, the man's poker face was one of the best.

Hojo adjusted his glasses, "And here I didn't think the Weapons existed."

"Just like the Promised Land?" Rufus asked, hiding his derision. "What does this mean, Hojo?"

"...Weapon," Hojo stated with understated dramatics. "Monsters created by the Planet. It appears when the Planet is in danger, reducing everything to nothingness." Reno scoffed, that sounded like Scarlet's style too. Hojo paid him no mind and continued. "That's what was stated in Professor Gast's report."

The boss narrowed his eyes at the scientist, "I never saw that report... Where is it?" Technically it was true, Rufus hadn't seen that information… yet. He only had time for Elena to give him a high level debrief of the information she had found at Icicle Inn, including the origin of Jenova and Professor Faremis' murder. She was ordered to flag the content Rufus was interested in. But with all of the time he spent managing and observing his department heads, he hadn't had time to go over it all.

Hojo tapped his temple, and gave a bit of a grin, "Here, right here," he said. Reno resisted the urge to scoff. Not sharing information made you a better agent, not a better scientist. Hojo liked squirreling away information and then pulling it out of his scrawny ass only when it became relevant. The redhead was sure it was just to make the man feel mentally superior, but to Reno it just made him look like an arrogant dickwad.

Reno knew that Rufus was probably pleased at this reaction, mostly because it justified the work he had put Elena on. Rufus responded with a fake an air of curiosity. "You certainly keep a lot of things to yourself…"

The room was shook for several more seconds, before finally settling down. Then in what Reno considered a rare moment of caution and sanity Scarlet said. "Mr. President... I've got a bad feeling about this place…"

Oh? Really, Scarlet? Was it the shaking? All of the Mako radiation swirling around outside? Or the fucking giant monsters in the walls?

Rufus made a show of considering her suggestion. It was true that the weapons inside the wall were shaking, but had they always done that, or was it because they were here? "Hmm... maybe we should go back to the Highwind. We need to prepare a survey crew to come in for inspection."

They started to turn to leave when the chamber suddenly filled with light. Reno cursed and blinked the sparks out of his vision. He scanned the room and was instantly confused.

Everyone was here, but now so was Strife, Lockhart, Kisaragi and Red XIII.

Naturally, Scarlet was the first to find her voice. "Wh- where did you come from!?"

***

The rest of Avalanche were a bundle of nerves, still waiting in the cave where they had fought Jenova. Reeve debated on getting a quick shot of liquor for himself to take the edge off, but didn't feel like it was worth the risk. As far as they knew the only enemy left ahead was Sephiroth, but no one wanted to be surprised.

Reeve knew that the president had set out for the crater and could be there already. He wasn't sure how he was going to handle it if the two groups came into conflict. He looked over at Vincent. If the man was still concerned about his allegiance, he currently showed no signs of it.

Barret was pacing back and forth, wearing a path in the rock. Cloud had asked him to hold on to the Black Materia. It was a big deal, but Reeve agreed with the choice. Barret was a man of conviction and grit. Even through a robot he didn't want to handle it, the very natures of Vincent and Ralena made them a questionable choice. Cid was a good man, but he had joined the group late, and maybe wouldn't feel the gravity of the item.

Speaking of, Cid was halfway through his second cigarette and tapping his foot rapidly, occasionally spinning his spear. He frequently looked down the tunnel that the others had disappeared down.

The former Turk sat on a rock next to Ralena, _just_ far enough that they didn't touch. The empath was leaned slightly forward and had her eyes closed, clearly trying to do some kind of meditation. While the pair was physically still, Reeve was under no illusions that they were any less nervous than the rest of them.

Suddenly, Reeve's monitor was overwhelmed by a green-white light as though some of the Lifestream nearby shot through the room.

The video feed went black.

The man shot out of his chair, knocking it over. He checked monitors for the status of the unit. There was no audio or video, but the signal was still intact. Panic coursed through his system as he looked over the red error messages, at least the unit hadn't been completely obliterated. Hoping that was a good sign, he tried to activate the other cameras, hoping it was only the active one that had been damaged.

The next fifteen seconds were the most stressful in Reeve's life. During that time he got the ultraviolent and infrared feeds in. Unable to move the robot all he could see was Cid's arm on the ground, leading off the screen not far in front of him. He found himself praying that it was still attached to the pilot as he sent a restart command to the unit.

There was another five agonizingly long seconds of nothing as it rebooted. When the video came back up, he was able to move and saw Cid pulling himself up into a sitting position. He seemed to be shaking off the effects still. Reeve looked around and he almost immediately noticed that Barret was missing. Scanning the room again, in case he somehow missed the large man, Ralena was still crumpled over, face down on the ground, beside a recovering Vincent.

He moved the little robot over to her, kneeling by her head and doing what he could to check her vitals. She was breathing and had a heartbeat, but her green eyes were half open and staring blankly forward.

From the corner of the screen, it wasn't hard to tell when Vincent got his vision back. The two had collapsed next to each other and he was kneeling on her other side almost instantly.

"She's alive," Cait Sith voiced quickly, "Not sure other than that."

"Where's Barret?" Cid asked from off-screen.

"I don't know," he admitted, looking to the pilot, "Whatever knocked you out overloaded my sensors. There was a solid twenty seconds that I can't account for."

"Well shit… We can't go lookin' for him until we're all up. How is she?"

He turned back and saw Vincent checking her for other injuries, by the time he was sure he could roll her over, Cid had joined the other two next to the woman and assisted.

"Hey, kid," Cid said to her, "This is no time to slack off."

Cait Sith brought the mog over, silently offering up its soft exterior to rest her head upon. As they arranged her, Reeve noticed Vincent hold her wrist, as if checking for a pulse for several seconds, his eyes closed. When he opened them he seemed frustrated. "I don’t know what it means," he whispered hopelessly.

***

"_Haven't you ever had the feeling something is calling you?_"

"You were there… but so was Zack." Tifa's words echoed around in his brain. He didn't know Zack, how could they have both been in Nibelheim?

"_My dreams. My honor. They're yours now._"

Who was that? Who gave him such a burden? His brother? No… he didn't have a brother, but he felt like one.

Those words were quickly joined by others. Clashing together, trying to make sense of his life. Contradicting each other, but he couldn't find the truth in it.

"_You were constructed by Hojo, piece by piece, right after Nibelheim was burnt. A puppet made up of vibrant Jenova cells... The cells which summon you to me._"

"You weren't a SOLDIER Cloud. But you were there, you protected me, you kept your promise!"

"_This one will make a fine test subject._"

He felt something touch his hand, but his mind was in a fog, voices were bouncing around his head, his body was moving on it's own. Whatever it was radiated power and was cold and hot at the same time. A distant voice called out to him, but he couldn't make it out.

"_The ability to change one's appearance, voice, and words. Inside of you, Jenova has merged with Tifa's memories, creating you, out of her memory...._"

"_… could you tell me a little about the Sephiroth you knew before…_"

"_SOLDIER is like a den on monsters, don't go inside._"

"_We're with you, Cloud, no matter how goddamn crazy it gets._"

"I don't have a number," he heard himself say. Someone was angry about that, what kind of number didn't he have?

"_You are a puppet._"

"_There ain't no getting' offa this train!_"

"_You are my... living legacy._"

"_Leave it to me!_"

"_Are you trying to tell me that _you_ have _feelings_?_"

"You're the same Cloud I grew up with! Don't listen to Hojo or Sephiroth!"

"_Sephiroth's not so scary, once you get to know him_."

Where are you Sephiroth? Pain and hate and the sensation of being drawn upward filled him. He wanted to go, but he was afraid. He shouldn't go… why shouldn't he go?

_Come to me puppet…_

_"Cloud… finish Sephiroth…"_

Green eyes smiled at him from behind chestnut bangs.

"_...take care of yourself. So you don't have a breakdown, okay?_"

"_You're not supposed to forget the person you're a legacy for, you know!_"

It came to him in a flood, Zack dying in the rain, riddled with bullets and blood filling the puddles beneath him. Lifting the handle of his massive sword and pushing it into his hands…

Zack's sword.

"I'm you're… living legacy," he whispered. Cloud looked down, he was shocked to see the Black Materia in his hand. He stared around the room. Barret was here, so were people from ShinRa. When did he get here? How did he have…

_Bring me the Black Materia..._ The voice reverberated in his head.

He winced and his hand gripped tightly onto the orb. "No," he whispered.

He could feel everyone in the room starring at him, but someone wasn't here. A voice that had been talking to him, but there was no body to go with it. "Cloud…" Tifa said hesitantly, reaching out and touching his arm.

"Yeah…" he said quietly, "I'm here, Tifa. But…" He looked up sharply and startled everyone when he suddenly shouted, "Where are _you_ Sephiroth!? Show yourself!"

_You will not command me._

He had an idea of where the voice was coming from, and held the black orb above his head, glaring at the mass of giant roots above him, "If you want this, you better show yourself!"

The chamber rumbled, a large eye the size of a car blinked from within the materia walls. Above them, from the center of the roots, the materia shook loose and hung like the centerpiece of a chandelier. Inside of it, was the unmoving and still regenerating form of Sephiroth.

A cocky grin, reminiscent of Zack's touched Cloud's lips, "If you're in there then I don't know how you expect to come and get it."

***

The puppet had cut his strings. The dark haired woman had ruined it. She remembered what she shouldn't have. She had ruined his perfectly constructed illusion of truth.

When Cloud had put himself in the Hound's place, he barely remembered the troops as inconsequential pawns. And they had been. Afterall, of the three that went to Nibelheim, only Cloud had even made it alive to the Reactor in the first place. One hadn’t even made it to the town.

But no, somehow the girl remembered he had been there, even though she hadn't even seen his face the whole time. It had been enough for the grip he had on Cloud to weaken. Enough for him to slip out of his control.

Frustration coursed through his very being, and his Jenova-cell copy shuddered and clenched its fists from where it hid nearby.

Fine then, no more hiding. He had needed someone to give him the Black Materia. The pure Jenova-cloned body couldn't penetrate the cocoon his body was in, he'd just have to get someone else to do it.

Or… maybe he could just use Cloud's arm without him attached to it.

***

A black clad figure dropped down, blade first. Cloud was ready and brought his sword up to block him. When the blades impacted each other a wave of energy came out from silver haired form and knocked everyone else in the chamber back. Cloud strained to throw the Masamune aside and tried not to think too hard about the fact that he had just dropped the Black Materia.

"Give it. To. Me." The thing before him growled. Cloud had to fight off the urge to drop his sword and retrieve the materia. The creature before him looked much like the real Sephiroth, but a few things about it were slightly off, it's pale smooth skin shined as though thinly coated with varnish. The hair seemed incomplete, moving together in a few large sections, more like coiled threads than hair. The long flowing tails of his jacket also moved as if they had a life of their own.

"You're not the real Sephiroth..." Cloud growled, trying as best he could to keep himself together. "I bet you _can't_ give this to yourself. You need me… don't you?"

_You will give it to me._ In his head the desire to follow the commands was still strong. But he would not give in.

His dreams, Zack's dreams, did not have Meteor in them. But they did include- "That's why you _killed her_ isn't it!? Just to bring me here! You bastard!" Rage sparked in his heart again as he sought to push Sephiroth back.

"You can't beat me, puppet!" This time Sephiroth's voice sounded as if there were multiple versions of him talking at once. While still striking at Cloud with the Masamune in his left hand, Sephiroth's right reached out. It sprouted tendrils that struck and grabbed at the others. Scarlet was lifted by the neck and Barret was grabbed by the arm. A third shot towards Rufus, but Reno was fast enough to intercept it, a jolt from his mag-rod disrupted it and prevented it from wrapping itself around him instead. Yuffie jumped back from a fourth one, slashing her weapon in front of her, in an attempt to keep it at bay.

"I'm _not_ your PUPPET!" Cloud shouted back, fueled suddenly by a conviction. He kept the images of Aerith and Zack in his mind and anchored himself to them.

Gunfire filled the chamber and Barret had shot the end of the tendril off of him. Scarlet hit something on her bracelet and a buzzing sound was followed by another severed tendril and strangely tinted blood splattered in her face. The remains of the limb swung around and stuck her, throwing her into Hojo and the two fell to the ground in a heap.

"Get the Black Materia!" Rufus ordered, as the Second Class SOLDIERs came into the chamber. He had his shotgun drawn and was ready to make any move he deemed necessary.

One of the SOLDIERs moved to get the orb but Tifa slid into his legs, knocking him over before he could get close enough. A tentacle intended for the woman grabbed the man instead and slammed him into the cave wall with a sickening crunch. Red XIII bounded over, dodging tentacles and scooped the orb up in his mouth. It burned slightly but he endured and headed for the exit.

Yuffie cast a _Slow_ spell at a SOLDIER approaching the cat, unwilling to let her weapon leave her hand for the moment. She moved alongside him to guard him from approaching enemies or tentacles.

"I think it's time we made for a hasty retreat!" Barret shouted, firing multiple rounds into the thing with Sephiroth's face. Given that it had locked swords with Cloud, it was forced to break off its assault in order to avoid getting hit. Its hair moved to intercept the bullets and fell apart like flesh, but the mass was pulling itself back together before long. Cloud took the opportunity to retreat. As he came up alongside Tifa, Cloud suddenly turned and raised his sword as a shield. A shotgun slug bounced off of the blade and the two blonde men glared at each other for a split second before Cloud turned and followed after his friends.

Rufus was about to order the SOLDIERs after him when Reno knocked him to the ground, the Masamune barely deflected by the mag-rod. "Boss we gotta get you outta here," he muttered as a pair of the SOLDIERs threw attack spells at Sephiroth, and others drew their blades to surround him.

Sephiroth's glare could have lit a forest on fire as he watched Cloud escape. He swept his blade across the battlefield, forcing his opponents back. He had his skills, but having shed all of the dying Jenova cells, this body was now made of much less mass and he didn't want to risk fighting all of these SOLDIERs, especially when it granted him nothing.

A First Class came running in and locked blades with him.

Too slow. Nothing compared to Genesis and Angeal. He sneered, how little did it take to become an S-1 these days? As the man came in for another swing Sephiroth side stepped and kicked out his leg with a sneer, fracturing it.

This body couldn't use materia, but he didn't need it, he had other magic at his disposal. He had hoped to wait until he got his hands on the Black Materia, that would have magnified the power he had, but he supposed it was time to modify his strategy.

He lashed out with everything, blade and tendrils alike, knocking the nearest of SOLDIERs back. The Turk was getting the executives out of the tunnel that the ShinRa had entered from, covered by several SOLDIERs.

Sephiroth's eyes went red and the light filled the chamber, blinding the remaining fighters. A few more stumbled out of the tunnel and he summoned the magic he had learned from his time in the Lifestream and blocked every exit with a magical barrier.

Outside the barrier the other SOLDIERs pounded on it and attempted to dispel it in order to get to their comrades. One of them was crouched near Scarlet, checking the nasty marks around her neck from where Sephiroth had grabbed her. The squirming end of the tendril was on the ground not far away.

"That's enough," Rufus said solemnly, about a minute. "If they haven't killed him by now…"

There was a moment of resignation before the remaining First Class turned back to Rufus, "What are your orders, Sir?"

He gestured, "Cloud and his friends ran down a tunnel in that general direction. See if you can find them and get the Black Materia they have. Catch them alive if you can."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> -ugh- making sure I got the formatting for this chapter right was a pain...


	19. Resounding in My Mind

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Anger Management; Dragging; That's not how you use a summon; Unexpected Visitors; Relic of the Past; Biding time;

Vincent resisted the urge to just shake the unconscious redhead, as if that had any hope of rousing her. He had touched her skin, trying to get a sense of what was going on with her, but all he got was a jumble of rapidly changing emotions too faint and chaotic to make sense of.

Cid was keeping watch, but kept sending worried glances their way as he and Cait Sith talked uselessly at her. Hoping she would respond.

He started when she suddenly gasped and sat up, as if coming out of a nightmare. Blinking rapidly, tears slipped down her cheeks and she clutched at the front of her shirt breathing heavily.

Cait Sith tried to comfort her, taking her hand the robot instructed her to take slow deep breaths. Treating it like a panic attack. It seemed to work and the they were just helping her get to her feet when the redhead suddenly growled nearly punched Vincent in a sudden influx of anger. It had been sloppy and he blocked it instinctively. Before she had time to be surprised at her own actions, she fell back to her knees, jaw clenched.

Vincent knelt down beside her, her hands were clutched tightly on the ground, knuckles white. Her whole body was tense and from what he could see there was a strange mix of emotions on her face. He move to take her face in his hands and she tried to move away, slapping away his hand. "Don't…" she whispered dangerously.

He put his hand atop one of hers on the ground instead and could feel the mix of seething rage and unshakeable fear. Before the emotions that came through her skin were more like a faint bleed, but now they were so intense that they practically leap into his fingertips that touched her. "What is it?" he asked, "Where is it coming from?"

Her eyes were shut tight, her shoulders shaking, as struggled to speak between clenched teeth, "Se… Sephi… roth."

Before any more could be said Nanaki came bounding into the tunnel, dropping the Black Materia into a surprised Cid's hands, and shaking out his muzzle. Yuffie, Barret, Tifa and Cloud were close on his heels.

"What is-"

"No time," Barret said cutting off the captain. He held out his hand to take the orb from him. "We gotta run, Sephiroth or the ShinRa will be comin'."

Vincent moved to help the empath stand, when she looked up and saw their blonde leader she tried to lunge at him in a sudden surge of strength. His hands still on her, the former Turk managed to keep her from escaping his side and reaching the SOLDIER.

Cloud stepped back, surprised at the rage in his comrade's face. A second later the glow in her eyes became less intense and her body felt weak again. "He is _so mad _at you," she said tightly. Vincent was surprised. She had told him that her empathy always came in as undirected, aimless feelings, that was part of how she differentiated outside emotions from her own. If this was so intense that she could feel where it was aimed…

Cloud winced suddenly, putting a hand to his head and Vincent felt the woman in his arms try to go for him again. He quickly adjusted his grip on her, getting her arms twisted behind her back. He made a gesture with his head for Tifa to help get Cloud out of the empath's vision. "Shut it out," he said to the redhead, sounding calmer than he felt.

"I _can't_," she growled through her teeth.

"Then push it aside as best you, can." Remain calm, he told himself. Meet anger with calm control, no matter how worried you are. "This isn't your anger."

She twisted her head around to try and glare at him. "Don't you think I fucking know that!?" she snapped. "Let. Me. Go. Vincent."

"No," he said sincerely, with a hint of pity in his eyes.

She pulled against him, "Why not?"

"I made you a promise."

Her anger became tinged with confusion, but he saw the exact moment she remembered the promise he made to her. She stopped struggling, turned away, and took several long, deep shuddering breaths. After at least half a minute her body was still tense but she seemed more in control. She turned to him, eyes still glowing green. "It's too much to block out," she said, her voice still dripping with venom, laced with a shiver of fear.

"Can you at least stop yourself from attacking Cloud?"

He felt her tense at the name, but she didn't try to escape. She forced herself to take more large breaths. "Might not be a problem, I'm not sure how much more of this I can take…"

Before he could ask her to clarify, the sound of oncoming footsteps could be heard coming down the tunnel. "Shit," Cid cursed, "we got incoming, time ta move."

***

Cloud stumbled along with the others. It was hard, that damn _thing _was still screaming in his head and it felt like an icepick and a heavy weight on his brain all at once. -_Just a copy_\- He had shaken off the need to obey its commands, but that didn't mean he was free of it. His body was trying to pull him back, like he was running through waist high water. -_Come back puppet-_ Still, he managed to remain middle of the pack with the rest of Avalanche running along. For the first time he realized just how much his Mako enhanced body put him ahead of the others. He was usually in front, paving the way and calculating the best path.

When they made it out of here- _BRING ME THE BLACK MATERIA!! – _he would have to make sure they slowed down a little whenever they could afford it. He winced and Tifa took hold of his arm, smiling at him, and helping to pull him along. "I got you," she said, barely audible over the sound of their pounding feet and the wind. "We'll figure it all out."

That certainly helped, just a little more, he managed to pushed off the pressure of Jenova and Sephiroth. Tifa was with him. She believed in him, and she knew who he was.

Now if only the damn voices would stop.

***

The redhead was being helped along by Cid and Vincent taking turns. Like Cloud, her mind had been fuzzy since they got to the crater and now it felt like she was drowning. She didn't have anyone screaming directly into her head, but trying to keep out the constant static of... whatever was in here had been wearing on her for hours and now she felt the anger and rage directed at Cloud for his insubordination. She tried to used it as fuel. To chase the ungrateful copy down and... _Just keep up_ she told herself, _use it to keep moving that's all_. She followed after the blonde ahead of her, filled with an anger she had never-

She struggled to shut her abilities off or at least turn them down, but it was like trying to stand still in a hurricane. Every black robed corpse was like an antenna and a land mine, the Jenova cells in them broadcasting Sephiroth's intent and emotion into easy reach of her. When the adrenaline wore off and they were safe, she was going to sleep for a week.

Something with cold and warm parts grabbed her hand. Looking up she saw that Vincent had taken it in his gauntlet. He couldn't spare her a glance, but an appreciative smile spread across her face as she tried to focus on him instead.

***

Vincent tried to think about their options. They needed to keep moving, they needed to be faster. They only had a minor head start as the SOLDIERs that the ShinRa had brought along with them took a small amount of time to fight the Sephiroth thing and secure Rufus. If they ran into any monsters then they would catch up.

Ralena stumbled again, and he paused to pull her onto his back. Only Barret noticed them stop and yelled ahead for the others to wait. Once Ralena was secured Vincent looked at the two older men, who were the closest to him. "Cid! Barret! we need to take down whatever markers we left on the way out. Hopefully, our pursuers will get lost." He had been doing his best to grab the flags they had left, but now that he picked up the redhead, whose fingers were already digging angrily into his upper arms, he would not be able get them all. The other men nodded as they moved ahead again.

It was a mad dash back up along the passages. So far the group had managed to stick together, but both Cloud and Ralena were still mentally reeling from the psychic intrusion. If they kept running though these twisted rocks and caves they would certainly get separated.

An idea suddenly hit him... It was ridiculous, but it was better than nothing. He called for a stop at the next open space and everyone clustered around, hopefully the small lead they had would be enough. Vincent slid Ralena off of his back and she and Cloud Ralena immediately sat on the ground, trying to get ahold of themselves, and breathing hard. "You, okay?" he asked quickly. Vibrant green eyes met his, she swallowed hard and nodded. A quick stroke of her hair and he stood. "Yuffie! Call your summon," he ordered.

"What!?"

"Just do it." He commanded, "We'll ride it out."

Yuffie opened her mouth to protest, then shrugged and complied.

"Are you _serious_?" Cid asked, "That's not how you use a summon!"

"I'll agree if it doesn't work." Vincent was convinced that if any of them could do it, it was Yuffie. Her obsession with Materia did not just extend to collecting it, but trying to find new ways to use it. Using the Transform materia on their travelling gear had been… well "a stroke of genius" was going a bit too far, but the way she could use the orbs other than the obvious gave her the best chance.

Yuffie concentrated hard, she had to do this a little differently than normal. She wasn't calling it to fight, but if _any_ summon would understand, it was the one Cloud had assigned to her. She remembered being mad about it. Especially since he gave her one he thought "fit her personality." Now was not the time to dwell on it. She needed to focus. She didn't need a single one either, she needed ten, but they could get away with nine, Red XIII didn't really need one. That was going to be hard. She frowned for a moment... they had one less person than she had been thinking of. _Come on you guys,_ she asked the spirits within the orb, _we could really use the help right now_.

There was a trilling noise in the cave ahead of them and six bright yellow birds approached the girl, the usual mogs absent from their backs. "Sorry," she said, taking deep breaths and leaning against a nearby rock "It's all I can get."

Vincent wasted no time, "It'll work. Tifa with Cloud, Ralena with me." Those two were the least stable right now and had the highest chance of falling off as far as he was concerned. He put a hand on the young girl's shoulder, looking her in the eye. "Can you keep the summon up and ride on your own?"

Yuffie nodded with determination, "I can." She wasn't a strong rider, but this was magically controlled, so he was sure she could do it.

"Good, direct them out the way we came in." He mounted up behind the redhead, securing her between his arms, "Nanaki, are you still ok to run?"

The feline huffed confidently, almost insulted, "Of course."

"Good, because we are out of time." SOLDIERs were entering the chamber as they shot off, evading a few spells. Vincent mentally thanked whoever decided SOLDIERs didn't need guns, it made running away so much easier.

***

When they made it to the outside edge of the crater, Yuffie was drained and exhausted, maintaining the summon for that long had used her mana almost completely. She dismissed it and they made their way back to the cave they had slept in last. Once hidden and out of the wind Yuffie, Ralena and Cloud all but threw themselves to the ground.

A gloved hand landed on her shoulder, "You did good, kid."

Yuffie looked up and her chest swelled up with pride, especially since the praise came from Cid. "Of course I did," She tried to stand up straight and proud, but fatigue won out and she crumbled down to her knees. "Because, you know," she panted, "I'm awesome." Cid handed her an ether, and she gratefully took it. It wasn't much, but they still had a ways to go.

"How are you two?" Tifa asked, looking at Cloud and Ralena. The empath clearly wasn't out for Cloud's head anymore, but each of them had several close calls climbing the short distance down the cave.

Bent over with his hands on his knees, Cloud waved a hand dismissively, "I'm fine," he panted.

"Yeah, sure you are," the redhead mocked, also breathing hard, "I bet you pass out before _I_ do." Her eyes were still glowing dimly, but at least she didn't look pissed off at him anymore.

"50?"

A crooked smile touched her lips, and she held out a hand, "You’re on." He clasped his hand with hers and they shook.

"Well I hope you guys are almost ready," Barret said, "They're still after us."

Cid groaned, "Then we better get goin', right?"

Vincent came back in to the cave, binoculars in hand "We have a problem."

"NOW what?" Yuffie asked, finally digging out her jacket now that the adrenaline was no longer keeping her warm.

"There's a ShinRa force setting up a base camp a few klicks from where we came in. They're blocking our path to the waystation. It looks like a small battalion, including sweepers. There are far too many for us to fight our way through, especially given our current condition."

"Are you sayin' we give up?"

He shook his head, "We can't let the ShinRa have the Black Materia either, we'll have to try to find another way. Those in the crater will likely be able to radio the battalion about us before we get a chance to sneak past, so we should assume they will be on alert by the time we get close."

"Do you think they'll see our lines?" Tifa asked, putting her heavier coat back on.

"If they think to look for them… maybe" Cid said, he knew a thing or two about scanning a landscape. It was easy to miss little details. "There's a lot of mountain to look at."

In the end they decided that they needed to make it as far as possible while the base camp was still being set up. Hoping that the ShinRa couldn't organize their troops that quickly. They also had the vague hope that getting further away from the crater would speed the recovery of Cloud and Ralena. Of course, there was no evidence to back that up, especially given that they both still looked winded.

With Nanaki and Yuffie scouting, they mostly took the caves down, finding other passages that led away from the way they had entered. Hours later, they made it far enough down the cliff to find a good sized cave that wasn't completely coated in ice and had a steep, but walkable path down the rest of the way. The path was on the outside of the crater wall, but at the lower elevation the wind wouldn't be as much of a problem.

Everyone gathered back together and they had a quick discussion about their situation. It was decided they could rest here for at least a few hours. That decided, Barret told the two weakened members of their party to sleep. The group had all but carried Cloud and Ralena along for the last half hour of travel and it was obvious that they still hand lingering symptoms. Cloud looked as though he was going to protest, but Tifa came over and backed up the larger man. Once they were laying down the others went about making the camp, and hopefully warming it up a bit more. Tifa broke out the map of the cliff and glacier and took it to the cave entrance, looking for land marks. She sighed and waved Yuffie over. The two discussed it and Tifa apologetically asked the younger woman if she would do one more quick scouting run after getting a bit of food in her. Yuffie whined a bit, but grabbed the map and binoculars and agreed to head out. Insisting that they better have a soft spot waiting for her when she got back.

Tifa moved back to the others and sat down beside the dozing Cloud. "Once she comes back we can see if we know where we are," she said quietly.

"Is it a good idea to send her out alone?" Cid asked.

Tifa raised a brow at him, "When we met her she had been living out in the woods, by herself, as a bandit. I think she can take care of herself for half an hour."

A little while later, Yuffie's wary voice preceded her into the cave, as she poked her head around the entrance. "Guys… we got a problem."

Barret sighed, showing his fatigue as he stood, "Now what-"

Yuffie's eyes went wide in alarm as Rude stepped in front of her and leveled a strange looking gun at the larger man. "Now you're coming with us." Suddenly alert, the other members of avalanche moved to get to their feet as several troops moved in behind Rude. The Turk quickly swung the device around and pulled the trigger. A bolt of electricity shot out, impacted on Cait Sith, and shorted out the robot, which fell over motionless. As the closest to the entrance Cid and Barret noticed the materia glowing on the sides of the device, giving them pause. "Normally, I would prefer to do this another way." Rude said, gesturing with the weapon, "But we don't need to fight, do we?"

Vincent and Tifa shifted sideways and took up guard stances, to better cover Ralena and Cloud, who were just now waking up. Vincent's eyes checked Rude and the seven troops, all of whom had their weapons trained on them. From his new position he could see that Yuffie had at least one barrel to her head, and there were more figures outside.

"Ten more outside," Rude said helpfully, noting the calculating red eyes, "Another twenty, plus two sweepers at the end of the path. All well rested."

Vincent's mouth formed a thin line as Nanaki glanced at him, a slight curl to his own lips. "Too many?" the feline asked.

There were several seconds of tense silence before Vincent gave a curt nod, reluctantly relaxing his stance and holding up his hands.

"Are you kidding!?" Barret growled, "We can take 'em!" The troops tensed, two more turned their guns towards him.

"There's no guarantee we would all live," was Vincent's simple answer. Both he and Barret were low on ammo, they were all tired physically and mentally. Not to mention that their two swordsmen were basically out of action, to the point that they couldn't even run. While they had easily taken on as many troops before, they were always in motion and rarely had to fight more than a few at once. Right now they were looking at thirty-seven, plus a Turk, and two sweepers, which were basically small, walking tanks.

"Stand down, Barret," the strained voice came from Cloud, who had barely gotten to a sitting position. Barret glanced back and saw the blonde's face, still pale and showing his exhaustion. The large man grunted and put his hands up. Following suit, Cid laid down his spear, but made sure it was across the toe of his boot, just in case.

A SOLDIER entered the cave, First Class, if Vincent was reading the uniform right. The Turk had failed to mention him. "Shall I?" he asked Rude, in an almost jovial manner. He noticed a gold glow from behind the SOLDIER's visor, but otherwise there were no identifying features. The Turk nodded to him and the S-1 held up his wrist, showing the armored wrist band with materia in it. "Just a _Silence_ spell. So you don't cause too much trouble on the way back to camp," he grinned.

The fact that the man had it paired with an All materia, so that he could potentially get all of them in a single casting, was a good sign. To Vincent, this implied that capture was the intent. As the spell settled over them he heard a small pained gasp behind him before the magic took their voices. He turned his head quickly, but didn't rush to her side for fear of being shot by the nervous looking troops. Ralena was crouched on all fours, head down and arms clearly shaking. He turned back to their captors and Rude nodded. "Help your injured," the First said, "We'll get your things."

As the troops moved forward, Vincent knelt down beside Ralena and moved to check her over. He saw her mouth moving, trying to speak. He put a hand on her shoulder and she looked up at him. His eyes widened in surprise. Her eyes had lost any hint of green and were now as brown as Yuffie's and she looked like she was going into a kind of shock. His hands went to either side of her face and he didn't feel anything abnormal through her skin.

Calling the spell _Silence _was a simple, but inaccurate description. While the inability to speak was one of the most notable effects, it also interrupted the mana flow in the targets body and somehow prevented one from visualizing spells as required.

Apparently, _Silence_ could also shut down Ralena's empathic abilities.

There was a strange look of exhausted panic on her face as she was trying to find something she couldn't see even when it was there. Her eyes were welling with tears and her lips desperately made the shape of his name, followed by rapid breathing that echoed loudly in his ears. It must have been an incredible shock to her system. She'd spent the better part of a day overwhelmed and now there was nothing, like standing in front of concert speakers at full blast when the power went out.

He did his best to convey that it would be alright. It was a good thing she was so skilled at reading his silent expressions. A few slight nods, and running a hand over her hair got her breathing under control. He brought up her wrist and pointed at one of the materia in her bracelet. _Just a spell,_ he mouthed to her.

She swallowed hard and nodded to him, but still looked a little lost. The panic settling, he could see exhaustion coming back over her. Outwardly, she didn't look as bad as Cloud did. She hadn't become as pale, but her weakened state was obvious. Likely the result of her body producing all of those hormones that were now mostly absent. Combine that with the constant physical strain of days trudging through the snow and climbing mountains with hardly a proper meal, it was a wonder they weren't all in the same condition.

***

The SOLDIER and Rude watched the members of Avalanche carefully as the troops took their weapons and moved to gather their gear. Red XIII moved to go stand beside Kisaragi, who looked embarrassed about having been caught. Not that it was her fault, they had been closing in on their location anyway. Wallace and Highwind moved to get closer to their downed comrades as the Cait Sith robot came back online.

The care that Lockhart took with Strife, and how Valentine calmed Walker, the redhead, did not go unnoticed. It wasn't the woman's real last name, but they had found record of her using it while passing through Junon. Suspiciously, her photo had _accidently_ been deleted from the record, but they did have enough security footage to verify it was her.

As Rude expected, it didn't take much convincing to have Cait surrender. Even remotely, Reeve was never much of a confrontational person. He just sighed and permitted himself to be _Silenced_ as he cast concerned looks at Strife and Walker. By this point the two were being helped up to standing. The blonde looked damned near dead on his feet. Rude wouldn't have been surprised to find that he had a fever. Given Reno's brief account of things in the middle of the crater, it looked like the man was still suffering from… whatever had been done to him.

As the prisoners were led out, one of the troops struggled to lift Cloud's Buster Sword and looked like he was about to just drag it along the ground behind him. The SOLDIER made his way over and nearly snatched it by the hilt. Lifting it with barely visible effort. "This sword doesn't deserved to be dragged around like scrap metal," he said harshly, "Go on, get the other stuff."

When they were the last two in the cave Rude looked back at the SOLDIER who had now lifted the sword by the hilt in both of his hands, the blade pointing up. The man held it in front of his face, almost scraping the rocky ceiling. It was the same way Angeal and Zack had held it in the past. Even with his helmet on, Rude could see that the SOLDIER was treating the sword as though it were some holy relic. "At least he's keeping it in good condition," he said after a few seconds. "How did he get this anyway?"

Even if the question wasn't really directed at him, Rude had to bite his tongue. Despite the fact that most of a battalion "went missing on a monster hunt" when Zack Fair was killed, his fate had been ordered to be kept a secret. The Turks hadn’t had a reason to even mention it to Rufus, never mind asking him about lifting the gag order on that. "We believe it was given to him," was all he said, turning his back on the confused SOLDIER to walk back out into the bitter, cold mountain air.

***

Reno was biding his time and gritting his teeth for it.

All three Turks were present on the deck as troops escorted Avalanche up the gangplank. Rude had come up first and was right at the rail, Elena stood at a midpoint and Reno was at the door that lead below. Rufus and the department heads, Scarlet, Heidegger and Hojo were also there watching, standing a comfortable distance from the path the group was intended to take. An S1 SOLDIER lead the group up, a box in hand and the Buster Sword strapped to his back.

Scarlet, who already had a bandage around her neck, smiled as she took a box from the SOLDIER and triumphantly brought it back to Rufus. Reno wasn't sure how he felt about the Black Materia being in her hands…

The first members of Avalanche to set foot on board were Lockhart and Wallace, helping Strife along. The man was barely conscious, and Reno was fairly certain that it had nothing to do with physical injury. After what he saw in the crater, Reno believed that Strife was physically and mentally _fucked_, and right now it showed. Highwind was next, the only one among them who was really talking, which was a generous word for what the captain was doing. He cussed out a trooper for taking his cigarettes, straight up flipped off Rufus and told him where he could stick it, and yelled at any one of the troops who tried to touch him or any of the others.

Valentine was helping Walker, who was stumbling, bent over with her hair in her face and a hand against her forehead. It was a role reversal from the photo in their files. Kisaragi and RED XIII did their best to flank the pair, trying to keep the guards a small distance from the redhead. Valentine gave Hojo a momentary glare from the corner of his eyes and seemed to move to try and block the other man's view of the woman. The scientist seemed too busy being surprised by the red clad man's presence and glaring daggers back to notice her.

Cait Sith was the last to board, bumbling along with the bulk of his mog. It was clear that the troops in the back were confused about how to encourage such a prisoner, where pain wasn't a motivator. When the last of the troop escort came on board Reno scanned the group again, almost frantically. There was not a hint of pink among them. He looked to Rude who followed the back of the prisoners, his partner just shrugged back, concern only readable to those who knew him.

Where was Aerith?

He caught the eye of Cait Sith, who just offered a sad shake of his head, and continued moving with the others. The spy hadn't reported anything in days and Reno couldn't decide if he should be angry at him or depressed. He quickly wiped the shock off of his face and escorted the prisoners to the brig. The ship was in the air and on its way to Junon before they were all divided into three cells. As instructed by Rufus, Reno only took a few minutes to assess the condition of the prisoners.

"You need a medic in there?" he asked at the first cell. Wallace told him to go fuck himself, and Lockhart just said there was nothing a doctor could do for Cloud at the moment as she worriedly tried to give the blonde some water.

In the next cell, Highwind was checking Cait Sith for damage and said that he just wanted his 'goddamn cigarettes' back. Reno was not surprised to see that the cat robot was offline, Reeve likely had a lot of work to make up for given how active Avalanche had been in the last week.

Valentine was in the same cell and didn't move to look at him and just said his injuries were of no concern. The man's high collared cloak made it difficult to read his body language. But knowing he had been a Turk gave Reno more insight as to his personality. Valentine had a demeanor similar to Tseng's. Which meant if Reno was reading him right, he was simultaneously planning an escape and stewing about being separated from his injured companion. He was playing the model prisoner right now, but Reno knew that as soon as he could act with a good enough chance of success he would.

Walker was in the last cell with the cat, Red XIII, and Kisaragi, who seemed to be fighting off air sickness already. Like the Wutaian girl, the redhead was leaned forward on the cot, head in her hands. From where he was looking though the cell window, the teen was slightly blocking his view. “Oy, what’s wrong with you two?”

“None of your business creep!” The teen snapped, before visibly fighting off a bout of nausea.

Unlike her friend, the redhead didn’t move, given her state when she came on board he knew her problem was not air sickness. He found that disconcerting. “I’m just tryin’ to see if I should send a doc down brat,” he retorted.

“Please do,” The cat said looking up from Walker, concern evident in his tone, “If your boss allows it.”

"She hit her head or something?"

The lion-like beast gave him a suspicious look, "It's uncertain… but…"

"Yeah?"

There was a clear growl in the beast's voice, "If the only doctor you have on board is Hojo" He saw the woman twitch slightly at the name, "you will want to send someone to clean up after."

"Don't worry," the Turk said with a bit of a sneer all his own, "He doesn't bother with things as simple as injuries." He sighed, "I got no guarantees on the time.”

Reno wanted to get a good look at Walker, to talk to her if he could. He had questions for this woman, but it wasn't anything that he wanted anyone else involved in. The information they had on her opened an old wound that he thought long ago had become a scar.

He was tempted to just barge into the cell, but with others in there it was a dangerous move, especially with the fiery tailed beast as a cell mate. When they got to Junon, the prisoners would be likely taken aside for treatment and questioning. When that happened he would be able to get the time he needed to have a face-to-face with his target and find out if his suspicions were correct. He only had to wait a few more hours. For now he would report back to Rufus and do his job.

When Reno reported back to Rufus, he let him know that none of the members had life threatening physical injuries, but two of them did seem to be… sick, and one of them may have a concussion. At that point he took up a position by the door, next to his partner. With the entirety of Avalanche on board they could not compromise their boss' safety. Of the executives and Turks that were on the Highwind only Elena was absent. Aside from her tendency to speak out of turn, Rufus had her scouring the records from the Feramis house and wanted a report on Jenova, the Cetra and the Weapons according to _that _information.

As Heidegger blustered on about some nonsense, Rude passed his phone over to Reno without looking at him. The screen showed two short exchanges with their inside man.

1h6m ago

**Operator**:  
Was that really necessary?

57m ago

**Rude**:  
Would you prefer I shot one of them?

9m ago

**Rude**:  
AG?

8m ago

**Operator**:  
Forgotten Capital, Sephiroth, 5 days ago

His face darkened for a moment. It wasn't like she was a Turk, but he'd known Aerith Gainsborough almost since he'd gotten the job. Taking a surveillance shift on her was practically part of on-the-job training. Especially since they never told the new Turks that she already knew about it. How your first encounter with the flower girl went was a story every Turk in his generation had. For this reason, Reno felt like they should at least have a toast on her behalf when they got the chance.

He scanned the room again and noticed that Hojo seemed to be the only other person in a bad mood besides himself and Rude. The man was clearly at odds with himself, pleased that one of his theories was confirmed, curious to follow up on something, and seething at the presence of Valentine. When he realized Aerith was dead he would have a whole other reason to be pissed, and Reno couldn't give less of a shit about how Hojo felt about that.

Hours past and they were on the approach to Junon.

Upon arrival, the Turks disembarked with the Rufus, Hojo and Heidegger. A small troop escort and the S-1 who had gone with Rude to retrieve Avalanche followed them with Strife, Wallace and Lockhart. Strife was being carried out on a stretcher, it seemed he had lost consciousness and was now difficult to rouse. Since they had left most of the troops and SOLDIERs back at the base camp Scarlet had remained aboard with the Black Materia and would be escorted off of the ship later when more SOLDIERs would be available to cover it and the remaining members of Avalanche.

They met up with a few S-2 SOLDIERs and a captain of the base. At which point Elena, Heidegger and the escort took the prisoners away. Once alone in the elevator with Rufus, Reno assumed Hojo didn't count himself and Rude, the man opened his mouth. "A few of the other members of Avalanche used to be specimens of mine. When can I get them back?" He spoke as though it was a foregone conclusion.

"How many is a few?" Rufus replied, his tone clearly indicating that an answer was required.

"Four, including Strife. I understand you may need him for other reasons, but I would appreciate being able to get some samples at the very least."

Standing in front of the two men Reno exchanged a glance with his partner. Four? Reno knew of three of them. He himself had been part of the retrieval team for Red XIII, Strife became one after Nibelheim, and according to his file, Valentine had also been at Hojo's mercy decades ago. He quickly went down the list of the remaining members of Avalanche. He was able to account for the known pasts of every other member, except one…

When he had seen her in the brig, the only reaction that came from the redhead was at Hojo’s name, and Valentine had made a point of trying to obscure her from the professor's view…

"That's nearly _half_ of them," Rufus stated, clearly displeased. "Heidegger will need to interrogate them first. It greatly depends on what they have to say. I wouldn't count on them being returned to you anytime soon."

That statement was followed by silence in which Reno could see Hojo scowl from the angled mirrors near the ceiling of the elevator. A ding filled the space and the doors opened. "If you want them that badly," Rufus said as he stepped out, "Then I will need a full report on Jenova and Sephiroth. My father may have let you do as you wish without oversight Hojo, but, at least for now, I prefer to be more informed." The implication was there, favors had to be earned, and his past record would not get him as far as he would have liked.

Reno smiled as the doors closed on the displeased expression on the scientist's face.

Less than an hour later alarms were blaring and troops were scrambling in the halls. As Heidegger hadn't come back to report yet, Reno was sent out in the hall to find out what was going on.

The damn airship was gone.

The crew had mutinied and Avalanche had dumped Scarlet before taking off with the airship, the Black Materia, and his target. For the first time in his professional career, Reno briefly considered going A.W.O.L.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AWOL = Absent Without Leave


	20. The Edge of Apathy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A General; What this means; Walk me through it; Taking samples; Bad news; Dusty basements; Red III; Military treatment; Talking to Myself; Agitated; Dance of Kali

A setback.

This was just a setback.

He had been a general, he knew tactics and planning. He had erred. He had been too confident in his ability to control Cloud. He hadn't made a backup plan. Now it was time to form one.

So… what did he know?

He was still in his materia cocoon, and his Jenova-celled duplicate was new and not as hardy as it had been before.

Cloud and his little friends had escaped with the Black Materia. They left being chased by ShinRa, so by now either side could have it.

The Black Materia was still in play, he needed to find out where it was. There were two other factions. One was small and hard to find, the other was large with global reach, easy to attack, but hard to do real damage to.

He smirked, that wasn't entirely true.

There were a few things that had been set into motion he could use. He had planted the seeds for success and put them within easy reach of that fool Hojo. That man's hunger for knowledge would no doubt give Sephiroth something he could use, but that would take time.

He needed soldiers, agents who could operate outside of the crater. How nice of ShinRa to provide a few to start him off.

Shiny black boots landed next to the unconscious and dying body of a man wearing the uniform of a first class SOLDIER. Since he… left, they clearly switched to a plan of quantity over quality in that regard. A hand reached towards the man, one digit elongating until it pressed into the man's neck. The man's breath stilled for a moment, then he gasped as purple veins spread from the point of contact.

The chamber rumbled, a giant eye blinked within the walls.

Hmmm… there were other problems he would have to address...

***

He didn't know what else to do.

Vincent pulled the covers up over the redhead, and watched her still form, breathing but unresponsive.

When the crew of The Highwind freed them as part of the mutiny, Vincent was not surprised that Ralena had stayed in her cell. Both she and Cloud had been mentally beaten in the crater and it seemed those wounds would not be simple to recover from. After they had secured the airship, he had headed back below deck found a worried Yuffie fighting off airsickness and escorting Ralena to the med bay. It was hard not to notice how damaged she was. Dull, brown, half lidded eyes didn't even keep her from walking into things. Vincent told Yuffie to go on ahead and carried the redhead the rest of the way. Shortly after being taken off of her feet she gave up the fight and allowed herself to pass out.

The combined effects from the crater, Sephiroth's attack that made them blackout and getting caught in the cross fire of the intense rage and mental barrage aimed at Cloud, had clearly put her in a delicate state. Then, the unexpected side-effect of the _Silence_ spell must have broken something. This left the group at a loss for what to do. No one on board had medical training beyond emergency triage and as far as they knew no one _anywhere_ knew how to heal an inundated empath.

He moved a bit of hair out of her face. He wanted to stay, but he couldn't. Worry and defeat touched his face as he withdrew his hand and clenched his fist.

Cloud, Tifa and Barret needed rescuing, and it was agreed that Vincent was best suited to plan the job, so he had to go. As ShinRa was on high alert for the stolen airship, he had brought her here on Iris with Nanaki and a spare chocobo from the Highwind running alongside for him to return with. Logic dictated that there was no choice to be made. They _had_ to leave her here, in the case that they failed and the Highwind got recaptured, he didn't want her to be on board.

Thinking back to Junon, the incident with the orb in the Forgotten Capital and their late night discussion at Icicle Inn, Vincent wondered if she knew that _others_ could feel _her_ emotions through her skin when her sixth sense was on. She probably didn't, given the coverage of her clothes, skin to skin was a rare occurrence for her. It also was very low level, if he hadn't suspected it, or had been distracted, then he could have missed it. It was obvious to him that it came from the contact. It was a strange sensation to feel an emotion through one part of your body. Tentatively he reached down, touched her cheek with his fingertips and closed his eyes for a several seconds.

Nothing.

Just the warmth of her skin. In theory, this was as it should be with anyone else, but he couldn't help the lump forming in his throat. Would it be the same if she were just sleeping? He didn't know what this meant, he didn’t know what_ any of this_ meant.

He leaned down and whispered to her, "If you ask for me, I will come." Her head turned slightly in his direction, and he watched her a few seconds more, as if she might wake up. She did not. Marshalling his emotions, and doing his best to put on his usual demeanor he left the room.

"Are you sure about this?" Nanaki asked as the gunman entered the hall and closed the door. "If I took her to my home, it may be better."

Vincent's hand was still on the knob of the hotel room door. He closed his eyes for a moment, the flicker of a fake ghost lit up the wall beside him and he let out a slow breath. Maybe the feline was right, maybe there were better places to leave her. But it was a too late to move her again especially somewhere farther, he had to get back to the others to put together a strategy. "People are happy here, right?" he asked, voice filled with more doubt than any of his comrades were used to from him. "That… should help her." He turned to look at the Nanaki, whose uncertainty reflected his own. "Where is Cait 3?" he asked after a moment.

"Arranging dinner," Nanaki said, "He should be back soon." Cait Sith had admitted to there being another unit waiting at the Gold Saucer, this one less robust and lacking a Mog. Vincent had asked about using him as a relay since Nanaki had extreme difficulty using Ralena's flip phone. Rather than pick up the toy and move them both elsewhere, Vincent had made the call to bring her here.

He would be questioning that decision for days to come.

"Before he gets back," Vincent reached into his cloak and pulled out a small metal box. Nanaki's ears went flat at the sight of it. "We can't have this with us either, don't tell either of them you have it."

Grim faced, the cat nodded and gestured for Vincent to put it in the pouch around his neck. "I will find a place to hide it."

"Nowhere too difficult to retrieve it from, when this is over we'll take it with us." There was a tense silence between them, as they tried to think of what made sense to say and what should be left unspoken. Red eyes looked at the door, as if he could see through it to the woman sleeping beyond. "She likes to watch the stars come out," he said quietly, as though it was some sacred knowledge, "It's her favorite time of day." A hint of a sad smile touched his eyes, "She even likes the fake ones."

***

It felt like he was floating in the dark. He thought he was in pieces. Different versions of himself from different times scattered in the void. All wondering what came before and after itself, and unable to find another piece because they were all facing outward. It felt like someone was trying to put him together, or at least put all of the pieces into the same jar.

_"It's time to wake up, Cloud! You're gonna give us country boys a bad rep! We're supposed to be hale and hearty!"_

The voice was male. He was trying to sound encouraging, and he had a lot of energy, but the concern was easy to pick out. He was always a bad liar… who was he again? Cloud knew him…

A second, voice came in to chastise the first, it was female and warm.

"_Don't be like that…"_

The male one sighed.

"_I know, I know it's not his fault._"

There was a sensation, like someone he couldn't see or hear snapping their fingers in front of his face underwater. Cloud felt like that man was crouched in front of him on the balls of his feet.

"_But come on, you gotta snap out of it!_"

He got the feeling that _she_ pulled the other voice back. He was certain she was close, looking at him, arms behind her back and bent over at the waist, a chestnut braid draped over her shoulder.

"_I don't think that's going to work._"

A hopeless shrug, then his arms crossed over his chest.

"_Then how are we supposed to help him?_"

The feeling of a smile as she looked to the other, then back at him.

"_She's here, she'll help him. Right, Cloud?_"

"Cloud?" A new voice. No… not new. He knew her. He'd known her forever…

Blue eyes blinked open slowly, "Tifa?"

"Thank goodness," relief was evident in her voice, "You're awake."

"It's dark…" he said quietly. His throat was dry and his voice sounded raspy to his own ears.

He saw the shape of her nod, and a warm hand found his. "It is, it's late."

That was a relief, he thought there was something wrong with his eyes. "Did I wake you?"

She shook her head, "I wasn't asleep yet."

He took a minute to catalogue his senses and what they were telling him. His body still felt tired. Even turning his head felt like a chore. The source of the dim light was outside of his vision. He heard an occasional beep and breathing somewhere else in the room. The room smelled sterile, metallic and salty somehow. He got the sense that he heard something from beyond the walls, but he couldn't make it out.

"Where are we?"

"Junon. Locked in a Med bay."

That made sense, ocean air and waves would be beyond the window. A lot of the military space was made of metal. "Who else is here?"

"Just us and Barret. They took us off of the airship first. I guess the others stole it afterward and got away."

"That's good… I guess." The two sat in silence for a minute before he spoke again, "Tifa… I don't know what's real…"

"You mean from before?"

"Yeah…"

Her hand squeezed his, "That's ok, I'll help you."

He smiled slightly, "She said you would."

His eyes had adjusted to the dark by now and he caught the sad smile on her face. "She's right."

Cloud's brow furrowed in confusion, "I don't know when I begin…"

"Why don't you walk me through what you remember? I'll let you know if I remember anything differently."

***

The two S-3 SOLDIERs looked on with awe as their field commander and the petite blonde in the Turk suit cleaned up a small set of monsters in the foyer. While the First Class was doing more damage, it was admirable that someone who hadn't been enhanced like they had was keeping up so well.

She jumped off of the stairs and managed to land a solid kick on the last of the floating pumpkin headed ghosts, knocking it towards the ground where their senior finished it in one strike. The woman had lamented not being able to use her usual grenades in this building, but she was doing an admirable job with a set of throwing daggers and her body.

"What do you two think doing!?" They snapped out of their haze as the S-1 turned on them. "Because it looks like the answer is _nothing_."

Elena turned her back and smirked as the senior SOLDIER reprimanded them. She pulled the floorplan out of her jacket and checked it again. The entrance to the stair case they needed was hidden in a sitting room on the second floor and headed down into the basement.

It seemed she was the default for this kind of work now. Elena wasn't sure whether or not should be proud of that fact. Again, she was with a data retrieval team, but instead of being in the cold, she was in the dusty and abandoned ShinRa Manor in Nibelheim. She was fine with monsters over snow. Even if these beasties weren't that powerful she was finally getting the chance to showcase her combat skills that she had trained so hard for.

Rufus had insisted that the villagers not know why her group was there, but they needed a cover for their presence. Most of the villagers had the job to report to Hojo, and information control was paramount. Given that, they arrived in a work truck, under the pretense of a renovation crew, here to revive the manor for the use of the president when he or VIPs wanted a change of scenery.

Also instead of just troops, she had three SOLDIERs, a first and two thirds, along with her to help fight through and clear out the monsters that had moved in. The data team and five troops waited with the truck until they cleared out enough hostiles.

She turned when she heard no more talking behind her. "Are we ready to move gentleman?"

"Yeah," the S-1 said, "Just let the rookies go first if you don't mind. I need to see what they can actually _do_."

She smiled sweetly, as the two men in question shifted uncomfortably. "Of course. After you."

***

"Don't you dare touch him," Tifa threatened through gritted teeth.

Hojo simply looked at her, he had never been concerned with physical threats, those were the boorish efforts of a simple mind. "Just a few blood samples to start."

"To start?" Barret huffed, also moving in front of where the blonde lay.

They were still secured in the medical bay. An army doctor had been waiting when they arrived and attached a few basic leads to Cloud, to monitor his vitals. Tifa had watched the man like a hawk, making sure he didn't anything like what Hojo was trying right now. If he hadn't walked in flanked by two first class SOLDIERs she probably would have attempted to lay him out the moment the door opened. This man had done too much to too many of her friends for her to give him any sort of sympathy.

"Don't you want to know what is wrong with him?" he asked, trying to appeal to her with logic. "Why he is a failed copy? Why _he _made it all the way there while the others died out."

"He didn't fail in becoming a copy," She said, squaring her shoulders, "he succeeded in staying himself." Was that really true? He seemed to have modeled himself after Zack, but that was still different. That was trauma and Mako poisoning, not… whatever the hell Hojo had done.

Hojo grinned, "Or is it because the process was incomplete? He did escape after all."

The woman nearly punched him, but a voice stopped her.

"Tifa…" Cloud's voice was quiet behind her, he was still recovering and had spent much of the day asleep, "This isn't worth fighting over. It's ok."

She was taken aback by his willingness, but Cloud probably wanted to know more about his condition too. There was a brief back and forth, did he really know what he was consenting to? But he considered a little blood to hardly be a concern. "Fine," she relented, then turned back towards Hojo, "but _you_ are not touching him. Send a nurse or something to get it. And he is not getting anything put _into_ him. I don't trust you."

The scrawny man smirked and adjusted his glasses, "A shrewd decision. For now I will agree to your terms." With that the man turned and left.

***

He didn't have time for this.

He should have done it sooner, not that he hadn't been busy. Still, he had put it off for far too long already. He should have done it after it happened, there had been a solid three days after that he could have done this. But it had been too fresh, too raw.

He really didn't have time for this.

Reeve stared at the screen, looking at the menu to select which unit he would controlled.

He should do this in person…

No, he couldn't expose himself and this couldn't wait on something like that. He swallowed hard and sighed.

He had blocked off an hour in his calendar to do this and he had already spent seven minutes trying to work up the nerve to basically make the damn phone call.

He selected the doll that had been delivered to Barret's daughter, Marlene. The girl was still being watched over by Elmyra, Aerith's adoptive mother. He started with just listening to the audio, hoping that they were out and he could put this off another day. He winced as he heard the girl playing with the doll and the background sounds of a household in motion.

Minutes passed before he found his voice.

"Good afternoon, Marlene."

"Oh! Floppy, you’re awake again," came her excited voice.

He turned on the camera and saw the little girl's smiling face. He muted the mic, sighed heavily and tried to swallow down the sick feeling coming over him. He really, _really_ didn't want to do this. He knew this was going to make them cry. "Yes, I have to tell Miss Elmyra something. Can you call her over?"

It was time to tell Aerith's mother the bad news.

***

The Turk wanted to cry when she saw the library. By Ramuh's beard, how was she going to get through all of this!? She thought it might be a couple of filing cabinets and maybe an outdated terminal. But there were shelves and shelves of binders and books, only some of which had labeled spines.

A low whistle came from behind her. "You're supposed to copy _all of this_?" The SOLDIER asked sympathy in his voice, "What is this place anyway?"

"Hojo's old lab," Elena sighed, "The president doesn't trust him, or believe that he will share all of the pertinent information." The woman slapped a hand over her mouth, then looked at him sheepishly. "Please don't repeat that. We're supposed to keep the contents as secret as possible."

He had flipped up his visor to get a better look at the room, the soft gold glow of his eyes obvious in the dim lighting. "Can’t make First Class without _some_ discretion," he smirked. "I'll keep the thirds at the entrance after we do another sweep. It looks like the doors to the basement kept the monsters out of this part of the building, but it's best to be sure."

"Thanks, Kunsel," the Turk replied.

"Ma'am" The SOLDIER nodded to her in farewell, then put his visor back down and turned to take the S-3s around the rest of the basement. She found Kunsel to be a little odd for a First Class. Once they reached said rank, most SOLDIERS ditched the helmet, as they were given more leeway with their uniform as a sign of achievement and privilege. But he had kept it, and she wondered why, maybe he just didn't like attention.

Elena turned back to the entrance of the library and noticed a sloppy stack of binders on a table next to a chair with a cracked back. The stack didn't seem to be all that dusty, and the surface had clearly been wiped clean relatively recently. Patches of disturbed dust on the floor implied that people had been here not that long ago. She opened the top binder and breathed out a thanks to whatever god of fortune was smiling on her. Flipping open a few more confirmed that the whole stack was on the Jenova Project and Project S. It likely wasn't everything they would need, but it would be nice to have some documents being processed as soon as the data team was set up. This also meant that if she looked for a clean, empty spot on the shelf, the nearby books should be related. She sighed, sure that Rufus would eventually want nearly everything here.

Hopefully she wouldn't have to stay here until it was all completed.

***

"She's getting worse," Red XIII said to Cait Sith.

"How can ye tell?" the sarcasm wasn't lost on the flame tailed cat. They found Ralena in the green room of the Golden Saucer battle arena again. They had missed her first two matches and judging by the look of her she didn't fair too well.

After they had lost Aerith, Cait Sith kept a close eye on all of his companions, watching was really his job anyway, and he had the benefit of being able to review footage of their behavior later. For whatever reason, it seemed like Ralena had gotten worse since leaving Icicle Inn, but had been hiding it well.

Most of them were anxious when Vincent decided to move the empath and leave her at the Gold Saucer. Asking Red XIII to watch her made sense, since big red cats with flame tails weren't really good for infiltration missions. What had surprised Cait Sith the most was that Vincent had trusted him enough to involve him with both the rescue mission and helping watch over the redhead. "_How many friend do you want to lose?_" He had asked, and took the unit's body language as his answer.

That was four days ago. The morning after Vincent left she had woken up and began acting like a living thing again, but hardly like a person. Her eyes were dull and hollow, not a trace of green to indicate her senses were even working. She showed very little emotion in her expression. Save some annoyance spared for her watchers.

"You need help."

She looked over, and was somewhat surprised to see the robotic cat looking at her sternly. "It's fine," she said, wincing as she poked at her wounds. Her blade master always warned against healing too quickly. If you did, then you would never learn.

"You're going to get yourself killed at this pace."

"The saucer has safety measures. This test was a failure. But success will come in time." She felt hollow inside, and she didn't know how to break out. She knew that she should, so she was here, trying something.

"Accidents happen, especially if you are exhausted."

"This one is _fine_."

The doll was taken aback, how did she just refer to herself? "You are doing multiple gauntlets a day…" he said in concern. For the past two days she had been hitting the arena hard. Running herself through gauntlet after gauntlet, until the arena manager cut her off.

"There are limits. Only five are allowed in a cycle." Somewhere… somewhere in the fight, emotion could be found. Rage, desperation, hopelessness, the rush victory, the disappointment of defeat. But it hadn't come, she knew she had come close a few times. She won the last round, if barely, it was time to move up another rank. Maybe a harder fight would yield a better output.

Cait Sith watched as she emotionlessly triaged her injuries, calculating how they were obtained and the mistakes she had made. That alone he could have conceived, but the way she had been speaking. Like she wasn't human, like she really did not feel anything. That seemed so counter to everything he knew about her.

He wished he could have done a better job watching out for her, but Reeve was split between three places, running a little ragged himself. Relaying reports from Red XIII, helping Avalanche and still being Reeve meant he had missed a lot. He and Red talked about her fights, she just didn't seem to have any passion. Until he compared the new footage to the old he hadn't realized how much she had clearly enjoyed fighting before. She ate, it seemed to them that she was trying, and she tried different things every time, but Red XIII said that she seemed to take no joy in any of it.

"One more round today," she said standing, having healed all of her wounds.

They followed her out to the arena entrance, a barred gate meant to resemble a coliseum of old. "I don’t think you should…" he trailed off, she wasn't paying any attention to him.

She waited next to the two felines in front of the gate, dull brown eyes calculating. When it opened she spoke, "Arena test fifteen, begin."

Back at his controls Reeve shuddered at her lifeless tone, as he watched her step onto the battlefield. The master of ceremonies came over the loud speakers to announce the next bout. That was when they heard it. Red XIII’s eyes went wide, and then narrowed. “Get Vincent.” Cait didn’t need his fellow feline to tell him, the current unit was already abandoned as Reeve switched controls.

***

On the Highwind, the cat robot animated and rolled off of the top of its mount, running off without it. It nearly tumbled over itself running through the corridors and catwalks. The first crewman he found told him that Vincent was on the deck and the toy ran.

On the main platform, Vincent was seeing Yuffie off. He had given her a few last minute pointers on her undercover assignment and it was time for her to get into position. She leaned around him and waved to something behind him. "You need to go, the boat can't wait much longer."

"Oh, you're right! Bye Cait!" she shouted before rushing off down the gangplank to the nearby speed boat that would take her to Junon.

"Vincent! Vincent!"

The former Turk turned, at first he looked like he might have been tired, or annoyed, but when he realized the robot was there without it's ever present mount, concern won out. Another sign of alarm, and confusion, was that the robot appeared to be out of breath. "What is it Cait Sith?"

"She's gotten bad. She needs to talk to someone an' we ain't cuttin' it!"

"Why? What's wrong?"

"She's been fightin' in the Battle Arena since you all left. Today she changed the name she was fightin' under." Vincent was confused at that bit of information, but the cat continued to speak. "And that's not all, the way she was talkin' today… she was talkin' like she was reading off a test record or a science report. She even called herself 'this one'. She… she was talkin' about herself like Hojo talks about his specimens."

Then the robot pushed a button on its megaphone and a playback of the start of the fight went off. "_The little redhead doesn't give up, does she folks?! She is back for her last gauntlet of the day, and she is kicking it up a notch! It's a three squared match up as Red 3 takes on Rank 3!_"

Vincent immediately turned on his heel, intent on heading days away from the cove where they hid to see her. Two solid steps hit the deck before- "Mr. Valentine!"

The crewman stopped dead in his tracks as Vincent turned swiftly and nearly pinned him to spot with his glare, "What?"

"ummm.. Uhh… there's a problem with our guy on the Junon radar…" the man trailed off.

Vincent cursed darkly and turned back to look at the gangplank taking a few seconds to think. He barely registered the frightened crewman excuse himself and run off. Cloud, Tifa and Barret had a time limit, a live execution had been announced, for three days from now and that accelerated their timetable. There was so much to prepare in order to get them out in time. It was one friend's mental health weighed against three lives. By that math the answer was clear as to who got priority, even if he felt the other way. He had to choose.

He hated it.

He had to remind himself that if he the airship now, and took a boat, it would take at least three days to get there, whereas the Highwind could be there in hours once the mission was complete. He closed his eyes and thought for a second, he did have another option. "Cait, can I speak to her through you?"

"It shouldn't be a problem, I'll have to do a bit o' work to set up a direct patch through from unit to unit. She's in the ring now, and she'll need time to recover after that…"

"Do it, in the meantime keep as close an eye on her as you can. Let me know the moment I can talk to her."

"Of course!"

"Good, for now I'll see if I can't handle our radar problem," he growled.

An hour later, the problem with their plant was taken care of by a frighteningly calm and unintentionally terrifying Vincent who carefully outlined how little they needed the man to do. There was no threat, and compensation was offered, but his voice alone carried with it promises of great pain if the conditions were not met. Afterward he found Cait Sith in the ship's conference room. Needing just another few minutes, the cat played Ralena's last fight on the screen on the wall. Vincent watched the recording, distressed at her movements. It almost hurt to see her fight that way, and her injuries almost seemed worse for her _lack_ of reaction. When they were ready, Cait Sith sat at the table across from Vincent, while the other unit walked up to the redhead.

***

“Ralena.” She lifter her head at the voice, and looked around, eventually her eyes landed on Cait Sith. “You didn’t pick up your phone,” said Vincent’s voice from the cat.

“This one thinks it's dead,” she said turning back to her drink. She was sitting in a corner booth at one of the bars, given the time of day it wasn't crowded and Nanaki seemed to be playing bouncer for the moment, lying in front of the booth and subtly blocking anyone from sitting in the adjacent one.

The cat robot climbed up on the bench opposite her, sat down and crossed it’s arms on the table. She looked up again and notice the eyes had changed to red… apparently he could do that. “I’m sorry I’m not there,” he said. “We only have two more days to get everything in place to save Cloud and the others. I thought leaving you where people were happier would help you.”

“Not working.”

The doll subtly winced, “I have heard. Nanaki said he hasn’t noticed the lights on once since you came to,”

“Broken.” she said.

“How?”

“Numb. This one can’t feel.”

There was a sigh, “I can’t help you.” She looked back up at him, she hadn't expected that from him. “You have to work through it. You know you need to, you are trying, that is important. We all want to support you."

She looked back at the red eyed toy cat for a solid ten seconds, when suddenly it spoke up again in another voice. “Git yer ass in gear! That leak ain’t gonna fix itself!” The voice was Cid’s, but the subtle body language was clearly that of Vincent turning to look at something. Cait's voice came through before being drowned out, “Sorry! The mic picked up Cid! -- If ya don’t have a wrench then go get one! What am I yer goddamn squire?”

Surprised at the sudden change in tone, she barked out a short laugh. “See? You can feel," Vincent’s voice said. "You just need to find another trigger."

"There is insufficient information to plan a proper course of action," she said robotically.

"Unfortunately, you are the only one who can speak on your condition. I can only offer suggestions. Have you opened yourself up? Tried to feel from others?"

"A little… it does not seem to work."

Vincent resisted the urge to sigh as the toy before him averted it's gaze again. She wasn't giving him much to work with. He was going to have to drag every answer out of her. "It might be worth trying."

"Probably, is…"

A softness came into his tone, but it still carried weight and influence. "You aren’t broken," he said, "You are _afraid_. You know what is waiting for you when you feel again." He paused, he didn't want to bring it up, but he had to say it, she needed the key to her fear. They had all mourned for Aerith, and she had spoken of her fear of Jenova. Those pains were ongoing, but there was one more thing that he knew weighed heavily on her. One thing she hadn't talked to anyone about, not that there had been a lot of opportunity. "Since the city, have you come to terms with what _he_ has become? Have you even thought about it?"

A flicker of something crossed her face. A spark of green lanced through her eyes, disappearing as quick as lightning. She shook her head.

Cid had walked into the room during the last exchange. "Who’re you talking to? Is that Ralena?"

"Yes," Vincent answered.

“Hey, you.” Cid's voice was softer than usual, even if his manner was mostly unchanged, “You got your shit together yet?” 

“This one is better,” she stated emotionlessly.

“What one? I asked about _you_.”

There was a slight chuckle, he really didn’t know what she had meant. “This… _I_ am better now, talking to all of you. Not ready yet.”

“Well you better get workin' on it," Cid said, "Yuffie told me all ya needed is a good cry, if it's anything like engineering, then it'll help release the pressure, right? Now I gotta go, I think Heidegger didn't allow for a proper maintenance schedule on this thing, and I got some toys I gotta finish cooking up for our mission.”

The robot across from her turned as though watching someone, then turned back to her and Vincent's voice came back, "Don’t hide in the dark like I did. Remember what you told me about the stars.”

She nodded, "Yes."

“One more thing… You stopped dancing.”

“What?”

“You're fighting mechanically, you used to dance more.” She blinked at him then nodded back, there was a spark of determination from his words and she clung to it.

***

Vincent was a Turk alright…

It wasn't hard for Reeve to see that he was putting the mission first, despite his personal desires.

Even though it was never considered a private conversation, Reeve felt a little odd sitting at his control station this time. Two monitors, one showing Vincent and the other Ralena, looking right at him, pretending to see each other. Sure he changed the eye colors of the units, and had rigged it so that the expressions and gestures matched the feeds, but that was hardly going to complete the illusion, especially with Cid barging in like he had.

There was something there though. The way they spoke to each other and kept eye contact, it felt like he wasn't even there.

Maybe they did see each other, even while staring into the eyes of a robotic cat.

***

Tifa was grateful for two things. One was that they hadn't seen Hojo again in the past few days and the other was that Cloud seemed to be looking better. The same military doctor had come back every day to check on his recovery. He had been the one to tell them, with various levels of annoyance about Hojo's requests for additional samples. Tifa got the impression he didn't like them or Hojo.

When Tifa asked if he knew what was wrong with Cloud the man looked unhappy. "Given my position I have limited knowledge of the specific physical quirks of SOLDIERs. My best guess is that some of your cells…" Barret tried not to get to impatient as the doctor searched for the right words to describe it. "I believe 'went rogue' would be the best way to put it."

Cloud paled, the word _degradation_ flared up in his mind with the image of men whose hair, skin, and somehow even clothes were turning white. "Are they still…"

The doctor shook his head, "Over the past few days the damage has healed and it doesn't look like any new damage is occurring. I believe whatever triggered the rogue element has worn off." There was a collective reduction in tension from the prisoners. "For the most part, the president has decided that he wants me to make sure you are all recovered before they move you."

"To Midgar?"

The doctor shrugged, "I don't need to know, they don't tell me. When the food comes up today there'll be an extra protein shake for you," he gestured to Cloud with a no-nonsense, unspoken order to make sure he drank it all. "Other than that I'll be looking over whatever lab results they _let_ me see."

They heard a small ping and the doctor fished out his phone and sighed, "I don't know why, but Hojo wants a sample of your hair…"

"His hair!?"

_No way… did he just eat my hair!?_

The flash of memory went by quickly, and Cloud shoved it aside, trying not to visibly wince. He had still been an invalid at the time of that incident, his mind lost in a Mako induced fog where only glimpses of the outside would could be seen... Or were they all seen and only glimpses could be remembered? At least he remembered it was Zack that had said it, that was an improvement. As far as the samples went, Cloud was well beyond caring. "Whatever, as long as you don't have to shave my head."

The doctor's shoulders relaxed, "Look, I don't approve of traitors," he said darkly, "But if Hojo's interest in you and your bloodwork is any indication, I beginning to have ideas as to _why _you might do it."

"Thank you, doctor."

"Don't thank me, I'm just following orders," he said flatly, walking out of the room.

***

This was different, Vincent noted, as he walked through a door in the ShinRa Manor basement and found his old, cramped office in the ShinRa Tower. The desk was covered in unreadable papers and a black suit jacket was hanging on the office chair. There was also a small, plain, brown box, about three inches in each dimension, with a label that read: _For Safe Keeping_. Curious, he reached for it.

"So the mission still always comes first, huh?" He looked up at the voice. Leaning against the doorframe was his former self. He didn't look much younger, but his hair was short and the eyes were a more subdued mahogany. The white shirt had its sleeves rolled up and his tie was missing, which meant he was working late. Behind the Turk, Ulster sat on all fours looking at him. Almost like a dog that had fetched something.

"We both know how it turned out when we let personal feelings get in the way last time." Vincent said, not happy about the self-criticism. He'd already done that enough while awake.

A bloody stain billowed on the Turk's white shirt. He didn't seem bothered. "That was different," he said, waving a hand dismissively. "We didn't know we were in hostile territory or what a sadistic bastard Hojo was."

"Is," he corrected. Hojo was still out there after all. "As far as I am concerned, we failed poorly on both ends. Lucrecia and Gast are dead because we were too busy making puppy eyes to see Hojo's lunacy."

The Turk gave him a level look, "To be fair, when you think about it, Lucy was a little crazy too."

Vincent didn't know how to respond to that. True, Lucrecia was on the road to losing it after the Jenova Cells were injected during the pregnancy, but now knowing what they could do to a person he couldn’t blame her. Before that she just... made a mistake. She hadn't thought about the consequences of her decisions.

Neither had he apparently.

After a few seconds the Turk continued. "You don't need to be on the scene for the rescue. You made a plan that will move without you. Let the rest of them handle it."

"Things won't go as smoothly without me. I can't be the one to plan the op and then not be there." He turned to fully face the other him, "And why is it that my subconscious always seems to think it is one or the other? " he asked darkly.

"Why do _you _always think there will be time for both?"

"She's not helpless and she's not alone." He retorted, "It's more critical that I be on hand in Junon in case things go sideways."

The Galian Beast gave a displeased growl.

"With the life we lead at some point you will have to choose. Eventually, there will come a moment, an instant," the other Vincent snapped his fingers, "where it's the mission or her. And you better have made up your mind before then."

"She didn't ask for me," he said, knowing it was a weak defense and feeling pain in his chest. He told himself he was just remembering being shot.

"Of course not!" the Turk snapped, "She knows you're neck deep in the rescue, she would only ask for you if she was feeling desperate. And right now she's _not feeling_. Don't you think that means she needs you?"

Vincent sighed, this was ridiculous. He knew these things. These were all things he had thought about. Three more days he told himself, they just had to get through three more days. Then he could be where he wanted the be, and only hours later than if he left. If she still needed help then, he would be there.

He looked down at the purple furred beast and wondered if he was really talking to himself, or if Ulster was using this image to speak on its behalf. Aerith had said they each possessed their own will. One of the last times Ulster had come out, on the way to Icicle Inn, it had run over to her and knocked her down like an overly friendly dog. When Vincent had come out of it he was practically in her lap and her face was completely red.

Barret had laughed his ass off.

He supposed it made a bizarre sort of sense. She had convinced him to, figuratively, let it off its leash after all.

Done with the conversation, he walked out past his old self, and stepped into the hall. The Death Gigas was there looming, just where he couldn't have seen it from inside the office. He looked at it, then Ulster, then his old self and said flatly, "Next time book a conference room."

***

The next morning when Ralena came out of the bathroom dressed and ready for the day, she looked at Nanaki who had slept on the other bed in the room, Cait Sith curled against him. She allowed herself a smile at the image.

"Nanaki…"

She wasn't surprised to see the lion-like beast was awake, his good eye opened and he met her gaze. "Good morning, Ralena."

"Sorry, Nanaki."

He raised his head and looked at her curiously.

”You were here, and Cait Sith too. Reaching for this one… _for me_," she corrected herself, forcing the use of the proper pronoun. "I can’t reach back yet… please be here when I can.”

“Of course,” he had a feeling that it wouldn’t be long now. "Are you going to Battle Square again?"

"One more time…" she said. "One variable I was afraid to test. But first, Iris needs some attention." She had time to kill after all, if she was going to do what she planned, she needed an audience, and few people bothered with the combat arena first thing in the morning.

When she arrived at the stable the bird gave her a little sass at first, pulling at her clothes and hair. Iris was irate with her mistress, she had been set to range on her own for over a week when the group left Bone Village. Then when they picked her up Ralena hadn't been there, _then_ she was taken into a metal beast. After all that she had been left in this stable for days, being taken care of by _strangers_.

It quickly became obvious that her mistress was distressed though. After some grooming and some grasses the blue bird decided that a comforting nuzzle was needed, and pushed her beak into the side of her owner's red head.

"This one is…" she took a deep breath, "_I'm_ sorry girl," Ralena had forgotten about it, her old defense mechanism. Turning herself into a robot, after days of rough tests and treatments she would sometimes do that. But she wasn't in the lab anymore, she wasn't a child.

She was out. She was free. She had friends. She had lost one. _Sephiroth was the enemy_. Other friends were in trouble. She was doing nothing because she couldn't… wouldn't let herself feel.

Feeling was important. Feeling meant she was alive.

She _was_ alive. That was a fact.

Now she just had to prove it.

***

Rude was concerned about his partner. Reno's behavior had been a little odd for a few weeks now, but ever since the Northern Crater he had been less… Reno than usual. It wasn't the death of Aerith, the two of them had dealt with death and loss plenty before. They had gone out and drank to the end of an era. After all, the Turks had performed surveillance and protection on Aerith for the better part of fifteen years. They would have brought Elena along, but she had been sent to Nibelheim the day after arriving in Junon. Not that she needed to be there, she had barely met the Cetra. Tseng had been the first Turk assigned to Aerith, and they had agreed that there was a strange sort of symmetry to both of them leaving the world so close to each other.

Aside from that night, Reno had barely had any alcohol. One drink after each shift, which Rude felt was being done more out of habit, rather than a desire to drink. Otherwise, Reno was hitting the gym _hard_. The poor bastards at the army boxing club were getting a major workout and needing a lot of ice for it. Reno even put a few Third Class SOLDIERs in their place. Reminding them that skill still had to be worked for, no matter how physically enhanced you were.

When Reno came into Rufus' office the next morning with a black eye and a swollen lip their boss sent him out to get healed up for appearances sake. When the Turks were with Rufus it was supposed to project an air of confidence and strength, they couldn't do that sporting visible bruises. Reno apologized, but with a grin more forced than usual, told Rufus that if he saw the other guys, he wouldn't feel like Reno looked weak.

When Rude finally asked him about it, Reno tried to shrug it off. "I'm just annoyed that a bunch of amateurs like Avalanche got away from us, and took the airship to boot." He gave his partner a half lazy look over his shoulder, "Next time, we'll get all of 'em."

That wasn't it.

Rude _knew_ that wasn't it. The two of them had been partners for well over five years, they could coordinate attacks and communicate with little more than a look. Reno spouted things off to Rude all the time, like he was a back-up memory bank. He had been on the receiving end of the unwanted details of every one night stand the redhead had… well the one's he was able to remember at any rate. The only thing that would delay them from talking about something was if they needed to voice their thoughts on confidential matters. Even then, the Turks had their own double talk that rarely made the delay necessary.

What could possibly be going through his head that he wouldn't share?

***

Standing before the gate to the arena, Ralena put her head down and closed her eyes, taking a few deep breaths. Don't just fight, dance. Feel the movement, the rhythm of battle. Just feel anything. Get yourself a jumpstart.

Her senses had been overloaded. If she thought about them recovering, rather than broken, maybe she could make it work.

She dug down deep and flipped the proverbial switch. It stung a little. Opening her eyes, once again a vibrant Mako green, she stepped out into the arena. If she couldn't feel, she would get the audience to. She would give them a show and in return she would use their emotions to feel alive once again.

Even with her senses open, the audience felt far away. They'd seen too much of her in the recent days. As she reached her starting position she gave a little flourish of a bow. Amateur theatrics, but the announcer played it up, and a hint of interest came in from the crowd.

The first two rounds went quickly, she took the opportunity of the easier enemies to spin around and add unnecessary flourishes. She even did a split for a final lunge. Which excited the crowd, and a bit of a grin found its way to her lips. If her blade master saw her now, she would receive no end of criticism for being so careless and flashy.

"Well that's different." Cait Sith said. Both he and Red XIII were watching from proper seats this time. The living cat had retrieved him to record this match.

"It seems she really is trying something different," the red feline said sagely, his tail flicking back and forth in anticipation.

On the fourth round, she used her Payback limit, she was still moving more than necessary, even getting a flip in. It wasn't practical, or smart, but the crowd was eating it up. She could feel it, her blood was rising, the emotion wasn't foreign, but she couldn't quite place it in the moment. She knew she was excited though. She took a brief moment to heal after round five, a grin was decorating her lips as she ran and slid between a beast's legs, slashing at its knees as she went through.

"She sure is putting on a show," said the mechanical cat.

Red XIII nodded, "I think the point is-" He was interrupted by a loud cheer from the crowd. "That," he finished. "Also, have you noticed?"

"What?"

"She's smiling."

"Yeah, but it's a bit of a scary one don't ya think?"

Being from a clan that prized a warrior's skill in combat, Red XIII saw nothing amiss about this. "When it's over, we can bring her back down," he said simply.

"If she doesn't kill herself…"

She was high on the crowd, she knew it, but there was no way she was letting that go now. At this point she needed it to finish this. The thrills, the excitement, the bloodlust. She wore it like warpaint across her face, brandished it like a weapon and drank it up like the very waters of life. When this was done, the victory she would taste would be the sweetest yet.

She was breathing hard, she was scratched and bruised, but she was alive. For the first time in a week she _felt_ alive. Casting a healing spell, she gave a thumbs up to the announcer. "Looks like she plans on finishing it off today folks. She looks ready and I hope you are too for ROUND 8, THE BAGNADRANA!"

The six legged reptile made its way into the arena and she sized it up as it looked around rapidly. She hadn't seen anyone fight it yet, though she had looked into it. It's only ability that wasn't its terrifyingly large teeth and sharp claws was its poison breath. If the crowd wanted blood, they were about to get it, how much of it was hers was yet to be determined.

It was rough going, especially as she tried to maintain her flourishes. It struck her again and her last clear thought was about how she felt different this time. Like it would something new when she hit her limit break again.

Dying to see what it was, she tempered herself briefly, taking a few cautious steps back in case she let her guard down. Then she reached for that new light within her and let loose.

The robotic cat stared at the events unfolding below him. "Woah."

"I do not think we should allow her and Vincent to use their limit breaks at the same time for a while…" Red XIII agreed. A visible red glow had enveloped the woman as she darted in at the giant lizard. When she struck he could almost swear he heard drums.

Her blades trailed streaks of red light. She continued to spin and flourish, but now the movements seemed effortless and ridiculously fast, like she had been training to fight this way her whole life. Burning blood rushed through her veins and the ecstasy of combat washed over her. Even being struck did not deter her, she simply spun with it, laughed and went back for more. Thrown across the arena she rolled along the ground then flipped back up charging in so fast the announcer almost had trouble keeping up.

The six-legged lizard breathed a poisonous cloud in her direction and for a moment the crowd was confused when she seemed to run away. Only to see her take a few steps up the wall then kick off of it, pushing herself up into the air as if to land on the creature's back. It moved and she missed her mark, its head snapped around. Inches from biting off her hand.

The grin on her face was wide. She was possessed by the very spirit of combat and she had to dance to the rhythm it played for her. Her skin was on fire and only the blood of her enemy could cool her.

There were several more exchanges, near misses and hits before she got her chance, leaping up one more time, she managed to use one of its own claws as a stepping stone. Once on the creature's back, she jammed both dagger and sword into its neck all the way up to the hilts.

The reptile roared, then gurgled as blood spurt from its mouth. She twisted and tore the blades out and it fell over. Standing atop it, bleeding and bruised, she freed her blades, raised them up and let out a primal cry of victory that was mostly unheard by the roaring crowd. Cait Sith was startled by the answering roar given by Red XIII beside him.

After soaking it all in for a few seconds, the red light faded, her eyes dimmed to a passive green, her arms went limp at her sides and everything went black.

***

When her eyes opened she found she was under the bright lights of the Gold Saucer's Infirmary. "That was quite a show you put on," she turned and saw Cait Sith, she was surprised to see concern showing through the robot's face.

Climbing up on a nearby chair, Nanaki came into view. "Are you alright?"

She turned to the cat, exhausted and feeling a strange mix of emotions. "I… I think I dug a little too deep."

"But you are here again."

It was true. She was here. But not everyone was. One was gone forever, another lost in madness, and three were facing death. She choked out a sob, and Nanaki reached out a paw in support. The dam cracked and in seconds tears were streaming down her face as she buried her face in his fur.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • this was supposed to be an entirely different limit break for Ralena, but as the scene developed it didn't make sense for the feeling/emotion of the other one I had in mind, compared to her having her own bloodlust limit -->the Dance of Kali  
• Also, I am working on a side story about Elena and Kunsel in Nibelheim, what became a casual reference of "Kunsel exists in this timeline" turned into "Why is Kunsel here?" in my head. That quickly became too much to include in the main story without completely derailing it with a few chapters of two characters that were hardly in here before. Not sure if it will be a few chapters or just a long one-shot.


	21. Covert Activities

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The Sentence; Phone Call; Incoming; News Blackout; Run Around; Pick up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> As this is a nice wrap up for the first half of Empathy, I am going to take a break for three weeks before resuming updates. Thank you so much to all of my readers so far, I am happy to be able to share this story with those who were willing to give it a chance :)  
I was originally going to take a shorter break, but with everything going on right now I want to make sure I don't burn out. I have been working on this story almost non-stop since October. And I need to unplug for a little while.
> 
> Updates will resume on the normal weekly schedule on 4/10/2020

The blonde and pair of Turks walked down the halls of Junon towards the medical wing. It was time to tell the three prisoners their fate. "Reno, did you see to the preparations?" He asked for confirmation, "I don't want Scarlet and Heidegger's... enthusiasm to ruin this."

"I did, boss," the man said stoically.

Rufus glanced at the man behind him but said nothing. He had been uncharacteristically serious since the rest of Avalanche escaped.

Outside the door to the med bay, a pair of SOLDIERs were waiting. At Rufus' nod they opened the door and he walked in, flanked by Reno and Rude. When they saw who entered, the three prisoners stood. Strife looked healthy and recovered.

Perfect.

Rufus had ordered them to be taken care of and not tortured for a reason, he didn't care how many bizarre samples Hojo wanted. This was part of the show for the media. He wanted to display the strength that Avalanche had. They were not executing the poor and down trodden. No, the ShinRa had taken down a powerful enemy. "Good morning," he said with a cold, polite smile.

Cloud narrowed his eyes at him, "Is it?"

Rufus let a smile tug at the corner of his lips, "For some of us. Unfortunately, this will likely be your last."

The looks on their faces spoke volumes of their surprise. "You're going to kill us!?" the woman exclaimed.

"We publicly announced your execution several days ago with the hopes that your friends would show up with the Black Materia in an attempt to bargain for your lives." He shrugged, "But it seems without your leadership they are unable to act. Changing the schedule now would make us look weak, and I can't have that."

"Why?" Cloud asked, clearly trying to remain calm, but his clenched fists were a clear sign that he was having trouble with that.

"You are to be made an example of. A pair of rebels led by a traitor SOLDIER. Not only will it show that such actions will not be tolerated, but also that ShinRa has the power to protect the people."

"Protect the people!?" The large man fumed stepping forward. Reno and Rude moved in front of Rufus and Cloud put out an arm, so that Wallace did not get closer. "You have burned down at least two towns and dropped a sector plate in the last five years!"

"You forget, no one knows about Nibelheim, most people believe that North Corel was an accident, and my father made sure everyone heard that you, that Avalanche, dropped the Sector 7 plate. The truth may be on your side, but public opinion is in ours." Rufus had to admit, it was a sad reality that the truth held so little weight. Even if these people had the chance to spout the things he had just said, there was so little evidence to be found that no one had reason to believe them.

"So that's it?" Strife asked, anger flashing in his eyes, "You're going to just sweep us under the rug and fill us full of bullets the way you did Zack." Rufus noticed both of his Turks stiffen at the reference.

"That was an ill-informed decision," Rufus said seriously. He wasn't actually familiar with that particular scenario, but knowing his father's style the response was likely heavy handed and half baked. "Besides," he continued, almost blandly, "you'll be on a pedestal, and the gas chamber is much more camera friendly than the firing squad."

"Just like that..." Lockhart said incredulously. "Even after we answered your questions?" Rufus had visited them several days earlier and asked them several questions about their recent activities, and what they knew about Sephiroth.

Rufus shook his head dramatically, "You didn’t tell me anything my spy couldn't in more detail."

Again, shocked looks amused him. "Spy!? Who the fuck?" Wallace looked even angrier, "I bet it was Vin-"

Strife put a hand on the larger man's shoulder and interrupted him, "It was Cait Sith," he said with a quiet finality.

"WHAT? You _knew_!?"

Rufus inwardly smiled, this seemed like the perfect moment for an exit. "I'll leave you to discuss it, or make whatever peace you need to. You have about..." he looked at his watch, "four hours." With that he turned and left the room, Reno and Rude following closely behind. He resisted the urge to scowl and half turned to Rude as they walked down the hall. "Any reports from Elena yet?"

"Preliminary findings sir," He answered without hesitation, "a few briefs on the project and some high level background information."

"I want that in front of me ASAP. I'll read it myself," he said darkly, "I'm tired of all the trouble that man's secrets are causing me. But first, when we get back to my office, I want you to tell me about this 'Zack' person."

***

Vincent was on the bridge of the Highwind sitting at a terminal. Once again going over the operation and the modern controls before him. If he was to run comms and his other part he didn't want to get confused in the midst of it. After the dream he had the other night, he decided he needed a more active role. If he wasn't going to be where he wanted, he had best be doing something more useful than waiting for problems to arise.

He sighed as his phone buzzed, the execution was scheduled mere hours from now. If something was out of place now it could be catastrophic for their plans. The only thing worse would be a giant monster attacking the city.

Without looking, he opened the phone and answered with a measured, carefully even voice, "Yes?"

There were several seconds of silence on the other end of the line, Vincent wondered if he frightened the caller. The person who eventually spoke was quiet, not timid, but with a level of uncertainty. "Vincent…"

"Ralena?" His entire mood shifted, he was no longer annoyed, but he was unsure if he should be relieved or worried. He left the bridge, phone to his ear. His movements easily noticed by everyone in the room.

"Yes… it's me," her voice was quiet and a little hoarse.

"Are you alright?"

"I'm… here," she said, her voice wasn't quite flat, and she sounded more tired than emotionless. "I broke through, but still working on the rest..."

"I'm sorry I'm not-"

"I know," she interrupted, " I understand… When will we know?"

He smiled sadly, she was asking about the others, that was a good sign. "We're going to cut it close. The best time to get them is when they move them for the execution." He could almost picture her wince at the words as he heard her suck in a breath. "If you want to risk watching it on TV you'll know when we move. Otherwise either myself or Cait Sith will contact you."

"…Ok."

There was another long silence, Vincent wasn't used to being the one to carry a conversation. "If everything goes according to plan, we'll be able to get you tonight."

"I'll be waiting."

A few more seconds went by, was this what it was like talking to him? "I have to go soon."

"Of course…" the way she trailed off he could tell she had something else to say. So he waited, the hum of the ship's engine his only other company. "Vincent?"

"Yes?"

"I… umm…" she seemed to change her mind, "I'll tell you when you get here… Don't fail, ok?"

He almost let out a small laugh, "-hmph- Have I failed a mission since you met me?"

"Don't jinx it," for the first time he heard a bit of humor in her voice, which brought him some relief.

"I- We'll see you tonight."

"Tonight," she repeated. "I'll count the stars while I wait."

There were another few seconds of silence before he said one more quick goodbye and hung up, hearing footsteps come up behind him. "How is she?" Cid asked.

"Better," Vincent answered, even if he wasn't sure _how much_ better. "She's anxious to see everyone."

"Then we better not disappoint her." Cid smirked, "Let's get this show on the road."

***

The Junon executive office was reserved for the use of the highest ranking executive on site. For the past week that person had been Rufus. With vaulted ceilings and windows that were the full height of the room, it had an astonishing view of the ocean over the barrel of the massive Mako cannon known as the Sister Ray. Rufus and Heidegger were settling in for the show while Reno and Rude tried not to look too bored or worried. A large TV was turned onto the news covering the execution. Rufus had Scarlet handling the press for this for several reasons. If he ever wanted to appear more lenient in the future then he couldn't be the one to push the button. Not only was Scarlet ruthless enough, she loved the spotlight more than any of them. So he decided to give her this honor.

Scarlet was standing on a stage set up in front of the gas chamber. She was wearing something a little bit different than normal, a high necked dress that covered the bruises she still sported from the crater. It also had a massive keyhole in the front to show off her cleavage, because of course it did, she wouldn't be Scarlet without that. The plan was to gas them one at a time, which he supposed was unnecessarily cruel, but that was the price of showmanship. The prisoners were escorted in by several troops and a pair of Second Class SOLDIERs.

He heard a reporter speak up in the crowd, "Scarlet! Why a live execution in this day and age?"

The answer was obscured by a frantic voice coming over the radio on the desk. "Sir! We've got an unidentified contact on the radar!"

"What do you mean!?" Heidegger demanded.

"I don’t know, but it's huge!"

"Can you give me anything else?"

The man over the radio sounded alarmed, "It… it appears to be biological sir!"

"A Sea Monster?" The large commander asked incredulously, "Are you serious?"

"I am sir, it's coming right for us."

Rufus looked up from the TV where Strife and Wallace were shouting about something and actually smirked, "It looks like this execution just became part of a double feature."

"Sir?"

Rufus looked out over the ocean and squinted, wondering if that bump he saw in the distance was it. "Why don't we use the cannon?" Scarlet would be a little annoyed she lost her spotlight, but the fact the she would lose it to the Sister Ray wasn't as bad. After all, it was one of her proudest achievements.

Heidegger grinned, "Yes sir!"

It wasn't long before sirens and warning lights were flashing and the citizens wondered if this was a drill before the announcement over the speakers came in. Huge metal blast doors came up over the windows to the office with a floor shaking thud as it locked into place. Making the room seem suddenly dark as their eyes adjusted to the illumination offered by the electric lights rather than the sun. He could faintly feel some of the other panels in the city sliding into place.

The computer on his desk showed a live camera feed from above, the shape coming towards them in the water had a large fin and left the snaking waves of a tail. On the TV Scarlet had just finished strapping Lockhart into the chair in the gas chamber before slapping her, in poor taste.

Heidegger gave the order to fire when ready.

The bottom of his computer screen began to glow slightly and the cannon fired. Bright light filled the screen and the whole room reverberated as though it were a dollhouse being placed on the ground by a giant.

Everything went black.

"What happened?" said Heidegger's voice after a second.

Rufus rolled his eyes, he should be the one asking. "It seems the power went out," the blonde said dully. A few more seconds past, dull emergency lights came on and the door opened, one of the SOLDIERs he had waiting outside looking in to check on them. He turned to look back at the man, "Get Scarlet to meet us, it's _her_ cannon, she better have a fix for it. Heidegger, we're going to the control room."

***

When everything went dark, Reeve released a breath he hadn't realized he was holding, he smirked as he switched to Cait Sith’s infrared feed. Light came in from the emergency lighting in the hall, but this room had _somehow _been disconnected from the power feed. Most everyone was looking around confused, but it seemed that the troopers had not failed in their duties, gun barrels were firmly pointed against Cloud and Barret's backs. It wasn't a surprise, after all, they had bought into the traitor and terrorist story as much as anyone.

Not that there wasn't a healthy amount of truth to it.

As the other members of the press were escorted out to go to a "safer" room where they could watch a feed of what was going on at sea, he quietly moved himself into a corner to remain behind unseen. The Cait Sith doll was currently in a special rig and disguised as an overweight reporter. In the hall the sound of a radio conversation was followed by someone looking into the room. "Ms. Scarlet, the president wants you to join him in the command room."

The woman let out a heavy sigh then turned to the troops next to the prisoners. "Lock them all in the gas chamber and guard them here, we'll finish this later."

After Scarlet left, the only ShinRa agents remaining in the room were four troopers standing on the stage in front of the gas chamber, the ones outside the door having gone with either Scarlet or the press.

Smirking in satisfaction, Reeve had Cait Sith shut the door, blocking the light from entering the room. There were a few seconds of confusion from the troops before one finally said, "Fine, _I'll_ go open the doo-" there was a grunt as he was cut off followed by a thud.

Another trooper started making fun of him for falling off of the stage, but was cut off by another grunt and thud next to him, followed quickly by a third. "Nighty-night," a voice whispered with an audible grin before something hit him in the throat, bringing him to his knees, trying to gasp for breath. All four troops were recovering from various injuries when a female voice whispered a spell in the room and they slumped over asleep.

By now Cait Sith had made it to the formerly guarded gas chamber door and opened it, "You guys ready to go?"

"Cait? Is that you?" Tifa asked, from where she was still secured into the chair.

Barret audibly growled, "When I get my hands on you-"

"Oh my god, chill!" Came Yuffie's voice. "We're getting you out." She illuminated her own face with one of the trooper's flashlights, "Ah! Dammit!"

Cloud almost laughed as he saw her rip the night vision goggles off of her face. Undoubtedly she thought it would be a dramatic reveal, but didn't think about the ramifications of shining a light in her own face. She was wearing more formal attire than normal, slacks, a blouse, a jacket and a long haired wig.

Reeve spoke as Cait Sith undid Cloud's hand cuffs, "We've got to hurry, before anyone comes down the hall and suspects anything." Passing the cuff keys to Cloud, Cait opened up the torso of the unit where he was housed and handed Tifa a long coat and a press pass, Barret was given similar and some flat thing that unfolded to look like a camera that fit over his gun. It wouldn't stand up to much scrutiny, but the low lighting should make up for it. Meanwhile, Yuffie and Cloud dragged the guards into the gas chamber and gave Cloud one of their shirts and helmets.

"Ugh, this again," he sighed, putting the disguise on, grabbing one of the guns, and attaching a flashlight to the barrel.

"Right," Cait Sith said, closing up the frame again, "We're all press and Cloud is escorting us."

"Why should we trust you?" Tifa asked, "We know you're a spy."

"For now can you just believe that I don't want you executed?"

"Yah, and can we have this talk _after_ we leave the ShinRa Military base?" Yuffie asked, exasperated.

"Fine," Barret muttered, "But we're gonna have words after this."

The face of the unknown reporter smiled, "I look forward to it."

***

The dim illumination of the emergency lights in the command room seemed to be less than those of the screens themselves. The radar still detected the presence of something in the water, but it was stationary and the camera feeds showed no other movement.

Heidegger was asking more questions than giving orders, not waiting for the reports that would come if he just had a little more patience. When was the last time Heidegger had to deal with an honest emergency? ShinRa had been aware of Avalanche's plan to hit a reactor, even if they hadn't been sure of which, when they blew up the Sector 1 reactor. Clearly the man was out of practice, probably because Rufus' father thought that preparing for an emergency was tantamount to admitting failure. By comparison the Colonel who normally ran the room looked stressed, but calm. Rufus wondered if the stress was brought on more by the events, or Heidegger's presence.

Rufus could see some other results from the former president's lack of emergency planning. He now recalled several times in which funding to perform maintenance on Junon's emergency system were turned down. He could see several red outlined displays of inoperable camera feeds around the city, which at first he had considered a minor annoyance until-

"Sir!" said one of the officers, coming up to Heidegger, "We've got reports of gunfire and explosions inside the city."

"How many?" Heidegger asked, trying to mask the panic in his voice.

"Every level, and various sectors," the general said.

"Sir!" an operator interrupted, "I have a report where they are hearing some people speaking Wutaian."

Rufus turned slightly, unnoticed by his head of Public Safety. "Reno."

The redhead nodded, "You got it boss." He turned and headed out the door, pointing at a pair of troops, "You two, with me." He would get to the bottom of this faster than Heidegger, even if he were in the command room.

Reno passed Scarlet on his way out. "Thank you for joining us Scarlet," Rufus said in a banal tone. "Where are the prisoners?"

"I locked them in the gas chamber, we can't turn it on without power, but they are secure."

He raised a brow at her blatant disappointment, but didn't comment on it. "Do you know why the power is out?"

"I've got people checking the conduits and breakers from the reactor," she said confidently. At least she had acted already. Though she was quick to defer the blame. "Reeve assured me that the plant could still handle the output required of the cannon!"

"Yes… of course, Reeve…" Rufus turned back to face forward. That was an angle he forgot about. "How long until the power is back on?"

***

The fugitives hustled to another street corner, led by Cait Sith's directions and guided by the flashlight strapped to Cloud's gun. They were skirting the central building, and it looked like they were heading around to the back.

Further down the street, in the direction of the airfield, the sound of gunfire caught the blonde's attention. Cloud turned sharply that way, alert for any hostiles that may come their way. "Who are they shooting at?"

Yuffie grinned, "I wouldn't worry about it."

"Trooper!" Cloud swiftly reacted, looking behind him, in the direction of the new voice. It was an army lieutenant with a small squad of troopers. The blonde quickly snapped to attention. "What are you doing trooper!?"

"Sir, I've been ordered to escort these civvies- I mean, _press crew_, somewhere safe, sir."

The power of the press was more limited than some people thought. After all, ShinRa wouldn't let any bad news get out without putting their own spin on it. Fortunately, it seemed this man was one of the many people who didn't know that. "Very well then, be quick about it. After all civilian safety is a number one priority."

Cloud rolled his eyes at the pandering response. "Yes sir, of course sir!" With a quick salute he turned back to his friends and waved them forward, "This way folks, I need to get you away from the action."

***

Reno made it to the sight of the nearest reported location in less than five minutes with a pair of troops in tow. They would have gotten there sooner, but with the power out opening the various doors of the base manually was a pain-in-the-ass.

He led his pair of troops down side streets that led further into the side of the cliff. The lighting was dim, as in an emergency only the ones on the corners were on and not even all of them were working, leaving plenty of dark shadows for people to hide in. There had been an explosion reported nearby and that had cleared the streets as well as alerted the military.

In the dark it was easy to spot the orange glow of a fire. They moved up to the corner and he held up a hand for them to stop as he peeked around the corner. The smoldering remains of a trashcan and whatever burning garbage was all that greeted him. He furrowed his brow in confusion and stepped closer, looking for blast patterns on the wall.

It was dark, but this looked like a low grade incendiary, it didn't seem to have done a lot of damage. ".. The hell?" He muttered aloud.

The sound of a hushed order and retreating footsteps suddenly found its way to his ears and he cursed, and rushed in that direction, shouting for the troops to keep up. He made it to the corner of a side street and had to slow down in order to pinpoint the alley that the steps were now coming from. When he realized it was the last one on this street he bolted forward and turned the corner, skidding to a stop at the entrance to an alley.

Empty.

He wasn't sure, but the thought he heard faint whispers for a second before they stopped. He narrowed his eyes and scanned the alley for hiding spots, some trashcans, a few doorways, and about eight hundred feet to the next street. He snapped out his mag rod and strolled cautiously down, tapping the weapon on anything within reach.

They had to be here, given the footsteps he heard, he would have seen them before they made it to the end of the alley. Wary of another explosive, he listened carefully for electric beeping and hissing fuses while he kept an eye out for any little lights that seemed out of place. He turned back and hissed at the troops to shut up and stand still. He was certain he heard voices, but he couldn't be sure if it was coming from any open windows above or not.

At one trashcan he tapped a bag next to it and the familiar, ear-piercing sound of audio feedback cut into his brain. He sneered and looked down at the bag, the sound of a voice speaking in Wutaian came from it. "You gotta be fucking kidding me," he muttered, picking up the bag and using the light in the handle of his magrod to look inside. He turned sharply on the troops behind him, "Call it in, it's goddamn speakers!"

As the trooper opened the channel, feedback again filled the alley. Growling, Reno ripped out the speaker and smashed it against the wall.

***

Vincent sat a terminal on the Highwind, watching audio visualizers from a number of devices planted in Junon. From here he could pick up when people were near their various speakers and play a small selection of sound files. He spotted a sequence of devices being chased down and triggered the _fading footsteps_ for them in order until the last unit. He switched to listen in on it as he triggered a _hushed conversation_. He heard Reno discover the source of the sound and winced slightly at the feedback in his own ears as the speaker was broken. The phone was still on, allowing him to listen in, but there wasn't much else of use before it was also dug out of the bag and shut off.

He turned his mic on for another channel, "Cait, it sounds like the source of the resistance has been discovered. What is your ETA?"

"About five minutes, getting some of these doors to open them is taking a bit longer than I anticipated."

"Speed it up if you can, let us know when you are in sight of the pick-up location."

"I think we're clear of any troops at this point, we can probably start running."

***

The five made their way up several flights before getting to a tight winding stairs that led up to the top of the lighthouse. "Are you kidding me?" Barret asked, finally ditching the fake camera shell.

"No, it's the best place for pick-up," Cait Sith said, "Come on, we need to hustle."

"Easy for you to say," the large man said, "you ain't actually runnin'."

Cloud set the pace and made a point of trying to find the right balance of speed and capability for the others. They made their way up to the top of the lighthouse that rose up over the cliff and city. Reaching the top, they were momentarily blinded by the late afternoon sunlight. Moving out to the railing and they were greeted by the sight of the Highwind, a ladder being thrown over the side by one of the crewman.

***

Finally, the lights came back on in the command room. A few quiet curses filled the room and Rufus blinked as his eyes adjusted back to the bright lights.

"Sir! We've got another bogey. It's on top of us and retreating at a steady clip."

Heidegger was beside himself, "Another one!?"

"This one is airborne, sir."

"Get the blast shields down," Rufus ordered, "Now."

With the power back on, it was an easy ask. A low mechanical vibration was heard as the heavier metal shields of the command room came down. Sunlight came into the room and as Rufus stepped up to the windows he caught sight of the Highwind cutting across the city and flying south.

Scarlet cursed, and rushed out of the room.

Rufus bit back a sigh, he really should have seen this coming. "Rude, join Scarlet in checking on the prisoners. Heidegger, see if we can't catch them." He knew it was a pointless gesture, the Highwind was one of the fastest aircraft they had. In the time it would take to get something else airborne it would probably be outside of their radar and have changed course.

There was a quiet curse that came from one of the men. When the explanation was given, Rufus sighed. Now the radar was jammed… fantastic.

***

"Holy shit, I can't believe that worked!" Cid whooped once Junon cleared their radar. They had to keep moving a full tilt for a few more minutes to guarantee they were in the clear, but they chances were now incredibly slim that they would be caught.

Vincent sat back and let the tension leak out of his system, taking off the headset. There had been multiple parts of the plan that had depended on the enemy reacting in certain ways. The most important being that they fired the cannon _after_ the prisoners were out of their cell, but _before_ the execution actually took place. He felt his phone buzz and looked at it, a text from Cait Sith was displayed.

"I'm passing on the good news."

He sighed, he would have liked to have done it. But Cait Sith deserved as much credit as anyone else. He had done a lot of prep work, from tweaking shift schedules and faking work requests for very specific maintenance to be done on the cannon and reactor. Whoever he really was, Cait Sith clearly had intimate knowledge of the inner workings of the Mako Reactors.

The door to the bridge opened, and a round of welcomes came from the crew. Cloud, Tifa, Barret and Yuffie walked in, tired, but happy. Cid and Vincent moved over to greet them. It didn't take very long for Tifa to ask about two missing members of their group.

"We'll be going to pick them up next," Cid answered.

***

It was dark when the Highwind arrived outside of the Gold Saucer. Nanaki, Ralena and Iris had been waiting in the nearest patch of grass with small fire acting as a beacon for the airship.

"There they are!" Yuffie said excitedly, running out of the bridge and being followed by a much more sedate Cloud, Tifa and Vincent. It always seemed that her airsickness abated when she was excited about something. It was hardly anytime at all and they were on the deck, ready to greet the last two members of their group.

The moment Ralena's face came into view, Vincent noticed her tired and sleepless appearance. She didn't see him immediately, mostly because Yuffie practically tackled her. Ralena gave a genuine, but tired, smile and hugged her back in turn. Yuffie gave the redhead an extra hard squeeze. "Don't ever do that to me again!"

"Sorry I worried you," Ralena said to the Wutaian girl.

"I think that's my line," said Tifa, moving in to take the teen's place as Yuffie moved to embrace Nanaki. Cloud found himself pushing off Iris in the initial greeting, the chocobo was being oddly affectionate towards him.

"I'm so happy you all are ok," Ralena said weakly, "Where is Barret?"

"Last I saw on the bridge, but he is aching to hit the bar on board," Tifa smirked.

A tired smile graced her features, "That sounds about right."

"I said we had to wait 'til we picked you up too, in case you wanted to join us." Cloud said, stepping forward to clasp forearms with her.

As the swordsman stepped back, jade eyes found Vincent's crimson ones halfway across the deck, and her smile seemed to soften a little. Tifa followed the empaths gaze and then subtly ushered the others towards the door, gently taking Iris' reins. "Let's continue this below deck, we don't want to stay here too long."

Ralena started to walk with them but stopped an awkward distance from the gunman who waited for her. She had wanted to tell him something before, and he thought he should give her the opportunity to say so in private. Fortunately, Tifa had caught on and made sure the others moved forward. She was worried for a second that she would have trouble with the chocobo, but Iris was hot on Cloud's heels and kept nudging him with her beak.

As the door closed behind the others, the tired woman suddenly looked sheepish and turned her eyes down to the ground.

"If you would rather rest first," Vincent said gently after several long seconds of silence, "We can talk later."

She looked back up to him and shook her head, "No… I…" she sighed. She felt silly, that much was obvious. She closed her eyes and took a deep breath, "It shouldn't be this hard."

"What?"

"Just saying 'thank you'… it doesn't seem like enough."

He smiled. Was that all? "I didn’t do anything."

She shook her head, "That's not true. The others couldn't reach me…"

He stepped forward, close enough to reach a hand out and grasped her upper arm. "I just pointed the way. You walked down the path." Looking at him, she almost seemed frustrated with him. A strange kind of hurt tinted her expression and she turned her gaze down again.

A twinge of guilt went through him and he cursed himself for not thinking through his response more. For days he had been looking forward to seeing her again. To see her recovered and back to herself or help her. She had recovered but she wasn't quite there yet, he could see that, and still he spoke too quickly. Now that he had eyes on her, practically the first thing he said somehow hurt her feelings.

He removed his hand.

Silence spread between them like a chasm and consumed the moment. It only took seconds for him to guess that she had expected him to understand how lost she felt. To realize how much the support he gave her had mattered in the end. Even if his words were just a match, that had lit the fuse for her recovery. Eventually he spoke, "I didn't mean-"

"No," She responded quickly, she shook her head again and scarlet waves danced around her head. "No. It's fine…"

His lips made a tight line and he nodded, even though she wasn't looking at him. "We should get inside…" he said. Slowly he turned away and started towards the door. He stopped when he felt resistance, a slight pull on his cloak. He half turned back and saw Ralena's hand clutching tightly onto the fabric. His eyes traced up her arm and to her downturned face.

He barely heard her whisper, "Words aren't enough…" Without looking up, she stepped forward, just behind his right shoulder and wrapped her arms around him, careful to avoid his left forearm. He went still for a moment in surprise, but quickly relaxed. "You gave me the light I needed to see by." She rested her cheek against the back of his shoulder and took a long steadying breath. In the past she said that he "clearly wasn't the hugging type," and would try to respect that. But as her arms clung desperately to him he began to realize the depth of her gratitude and again silently kicked himself.

"Glad I could help," he said quietly, his voice barely audible over the wind and idling engines. She just needed him to acknowledge her thanks, not hear assurances that she was stronger than she thought. She didn't need him to downplay his part, or say that thanks wasn't needed. When he didn't pull away she relaxed a little but still held onto him tightly. He still wished he could have been there in person. Several seconds later, he raised his right hand, and lightly rested his fingertips against her arm. Relief flooded him when he felt the light sensation of something coming through her skin.

Erroneously, she took his touch as a sign that he had been embraced for long enough and she delicately pulled her arms away.

"We should probably get below deck," he said quietly, "Cid doesn't like anyone outside when we take off…"

She nodded, there were a few seconds where they waited for the other to move first. Vincent seemed to have to try harder than necessary to move his feet, but when he did she followed closely behind, as if following him in a dance. As they headed to the doors that led inside, they both felt a little colder now that the contact was broken.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It took me a little while to figure out what to do with this chapter, but I had a lot of fun once I figured it out. Huge thanks to my husband who helped me talk it out :) <3 <3


	22. Backward and Forward

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fresh Samples; Meeting Cloud; Strategy meeting; Debrief; A Missing Piece

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So what did I do to unplug from Empathy on my break? Worked on a spinoff one-shot, a Sephiroth/Aerith fiction and a separate series of one shots starting with Sephiroth as a child in the ShinRa Manor… I also changed a major part near the end of Empathy… so yeah, I gave myself more work.

Hojo was content to finally be back at his labs in the ShinRa Tower. The one in Junon was not nearly as spacious or robust. It was also where he sent members of the science department that irritated him and asked too many questions about ethics and other such nonsense. This made the fact that there even was a lab virtually useless to him, as the people who worked there under him wanted to take advantage of his presence. They bothered him with their less than inspiring projects with mundane applications. Sitting back at his desk he frowned at his calendar, he was supposed to meet with Rufus to hand him a report in a few days. The reminder made him think about the crater and Avalanche.

It looked like Avalanche had become a veritable parade of some of his past experiments and specimens. The failed copy Strife, Valentine, Red III and Red XIII. Red III was a surprise to see, she had escaped years ago and disappeared into the sea of humanity that was Midgar. By the time the president got the Turks on the job months after Nibelheim, there was not a trace of her to be found in Midgar. On the airship Hojo did not initially realize that Red III was among the group. It wasn't until they were half way to Junon, when Hojo went to look at the camera feeds in the cells to check on the failed copy and Red XIII, that he even realized she was there. When they were brought on board Valentine had been in his way, a place he liked to put himself, it seemed. Hojo's expression soured further at the thought

That troublesome Turk was up and running around again. It made Hojo's blood boil to know that _boy_ had rejoined the land of the living. He should have stayed in the basement where Hojo had left him decades ago. Someone must have gone into his tomb and woken him. The scientist now cursed his past actions, leaving clues so that someone might wake that pathetic bastard. He took a deep breath, and looked at his computer. His time away had led to a slew of messages and emails waiting for him. He would check the Nibelheim visitor reports later, but he could only assume that Avalanche had convinced Valentine to leave.

Hojo was curious to know how his subjects were doing, but Rufus expected reports on Sephiroth and the Jenova project. Hojo could appreciate the man wanting to know about his enemy and expanding his knowledge, but Rufus didn't have the intellectual capacity to understand the complex nature of the project. He had given him a brief verbal rundown while in Junon, but the president wanted more detail _in writing_. It was a bureaucratic waste of time. He hated dumbing things down for mundane minds, but he had a few assistants that he trusted with the knowledge of the project, one of them could write it up and Hojo could make sure nothing he wanted to let out of the department was mentioned in it.

Yes, that would do. Afterall, he had more important things to work on.

There were wonderful new samples to research. Then end of the tentacle from Scarlet's neck and several samples from her injury warranted a closer look. He noticed that they were slightly different than the previous Jenova-cell cultures. He'd have to be sure to replicate a healthy number of them before risking any in experimentation. Fortunately these seemed to be young, healthy cells and were ready to duplicate themselves when the proper fuel was provided. Hojo knew the perfect mix for that. If his hypothesis was correct, then he would have half again the quantity before the week was out. His mouth spread into a maddened grin.

It was an exciting time to be sure.

***

There was a small bar on the Highwind, likely an addition for the comfort of executives and important guests. Ralena was sitting there, watching the liquid in her glass pitch slightly, a magnetic bottom holding it to the surface. She had come to like beer, which was mostly Barret's fault, and she found the dark ones to be closer to her tastes, though she was far from finding one she could honestly call her favorite. Then again, compared to the moonshine back at the farm she could at least _taste _beer. The feeling was good. She felt that one beer could help her when the background haze of emotions started to become too much. She was really sensitive to that sort of thing right now, her senses were still raw. At least the skeleton crew of the Highwind and Avalanche together barely numbered over thirty people, and the metal walls within the ship seemed to block emotions almost as well as they blocked sound, giving her relief without having to figuratively shut her eyes.

"Hey." She turned at the voice and saw Cloud walking up. He went behind the bar to grab himself a beer. It was self-serve most of the time as Cid didn't think it necessary to waste a crewman's time on it.

"Hey," she said, he moved back around and sat down, an empty stool between them. The rescue from Junon had been two days ago, and they had been laying low among some remote mountains, watching the media fallout from the escape and just enjoying not needing to worry about anyone dying.

"Heard you were out of commission too."

"Yeah…" she said, looking at her drink again.

"What happened?"

She sat back, she hadn't truly taken the time to explain it to anyone yet. Not that she thought they didn't care, but it hadn't seemed important. Cloud was the first to ask. Even Vincent had not asked, probably because he thought he knew what happened. Clearly Cloud wanted to know, so she would tell him. "When the Jenova-Sephiroth knocked us out, I was already having trouble, as you know. The place was… weird, like it was full of loud static." She took a drink, "And then…"

"Then?"

"When we were knocked out, I… it was strange. I saw my memories of Sephiroth. But it was a bunch of them overlaid on top of each other, and I felt… everything. Every emotion I had sensed and felt over the course of about a year."

Cloud thought about the illusion of Nibelheim, used to confuse them, but none of the rest said they experienced anything like it. He didn't think any of the others with the her group had first hand contact with Sephiroth, so maybe that was part of it. Her abilities likely had a large part to play in it as well.

"Was it bad?" he asked.

"Not all of it… but when that SOLDIER cast _Silence_ on us… I didn't know it could shut my abilities down so completely. It was a shock."

Cloud nodded, "Like water on hot metal…" he mused before he gulped down a bit of his drink and stared at it. "Did any of what you saw help you?"

She pursed her lips, "Dunno yet. But I tore up the arena, and got a new limit, working through it" she smirked.

"I heard," he grinned. Almost half-heartedly, Cloud held up a fist, and she bumped hers against it. For a minute they just sat and enjoyed their drinks. 

"You know, I had forgotten," she said eventually.

"What?" the blonde asked.

"I saw you once before."

"What do you mean?"

She turned on the stool to face him, "How much do you remember from your time at ShinRa? As an infantry soldier, I mean."

"It's been coming back in pieces," he admitted. "But not much."

"Do you remember, one night you and Zack were up talking, and Sephiroth walked through with another SOLDIER?"

He sat back a moment and looked at the ceiling, "Yeah, I think so…"

***

They were hanging out in the lobby on one of the floors where the on duty troops and SOLDIERs slept during their rotations. Zack was exercising again, Cloud always got tired just watching him. Thinking about it, maybe he should pick up a more strict regimen if he wanted to get stronger. Seeing Zack in action did make him realize how far he really had to go, it seemed so impossible for someone small like him to get there.

"Hey Zack…" the blonde started.

"Yeah?" Before Cloud could ask his question, Zack spotted something behind him and waved. "Hey Sephiroth!"

Cloud froze before turning around. Sephiroth? _The_ Sephiroth? And Zack was flagging him down like he wanted to share a beer. The nervous blonde collected himself enough to turn around. Hell, maybe Zack did want a beer, they were both First Class after all.

"What are you two doing here?" The silver haired SOLDIER asked, as though he were irritated at being stopped, but trying not to show it.

"Just two country boys talking. How about you?" Zack asked, gesturing to the third class SOLDIER behind him, who snapped to a sloppy attention. He was wearing his helmet so Cloud couldn't tell if he had seen him before or not. He did think it was a little strange for one to be wearing their helmet here, but he was being escorted by the general.

Sephiroth cast a sidelong glare in the third's direction, his voice was cool and irritated, "I've been asked to teach this rookie a lesson. Apparently he has trouble with _self-control_." He stressed the last two words oddly.

The helmeted soldier looked up towards Sephiroth in surprise. Cloud noticed a dim green glow from behind the eye slits in the helmet disappear. After that, for some reason, some of his nervousness vanished. Maybe it was the idea that someone like that had made it as a Third Class SOLDIER that gave him hope. Afterall, if someone _that small_ could make it he might still have a chance.

The short one noticed Cloud looking at him and began to shuffle uneasily. He found that strange, anyone who made it as a SOLDIER should have more guts than that.

"Oh sorry," Zack said with an apologetic smile, "Didn't know you were in the middle of something." He trotted over to the third class SOLDIER, who almost seemed to recoil in fear at his rapid approach. The black haired man put a hand next to his mouth and in a dramatic stage whisper and said, "Sephiroth's not so scary, once you get to know him."

"Really?" Sephiroth responded, with a low, threatening tone. Cloud noticed that the man was oddly still, like a predator waiting to pounce.

Grinning like a fool, Zack backed up, his hands in front of him, "Sorry, sorry. Didn't mean to undermine your authority. But seriously," he said, turning back to the masked SOLDIER, "if there is anyone you shouldn't be afraid of, it's me." Zack beamed, pointing to himself with both thumbs.

"Noted," Sephiroth said flatly. He turned to the following SOLDIER, his voice somehow softer than it had been with Zack. "Let's go." He took the remaining distance to the elevator in a few long stride and pushed the down button. The smaller figure followed hurriedly and stood on his opposite side, as if trying to hide himself from view.

Of course the dark haired man wouldn't let silence settle in. "So, what did he do anyway? It's gotta be bad if their calling you instead of his C.O."

Green, cat-like eyes moved to look at Zack, then Cloud. "I'd rather not discuss it now." The young troop tried not to react to his idol staring right at him, clearly something like this was beyond his clearance to hear.

The elevator arrived quickly, to everyone's relief, save Zack, who seemed immune to the awkwardness of the moment.

"Zack," Cloud asked, after the elevator doors closed. "How often do higher rank SOLDIERs discipline the lower ranks?"

The dark haired man leaned back, hands on his hips, "Hmmm… I don't really remember any of the Firsts coming down when I was a Third. Maybe I just missed out on the one-on-ones."

Cloud looked at the elevator, the lights indicating it was heading down, instead of up towards the training floor. "What about…"

"Yeah?"

"How many female SOLDIERS does ShinRa have?"

****

"That was you?" Cloud asked, surprise filling his blue eyes.

She nodded, kicking back the last of her drink, "That was the night Sephiroth helped me escape. I was so afraid when we came across other people. I thought we were doomed."

Cloud laughed, "When we realized it was a woman in a SOLDIER's uniform we were convinced that-" he stopped short and coughed.

"What?"

"That he was ummm… sneaking out a prostitute."

The redhead blinked at him for a moment, before bursting out laughing.

"What's so funny?" Came a voice from the doorway. They turned to see Cid walking in.

"Cloud thought I was a prostitute," she said still laughing.

"What?"

"You made it sound weird," he said defensively.

"mm hmm," she smirked with a nod.

Cid laughed, filling himself a glass and she gestured with her own, asking for a refill. When she got the first drink out of it she looked at the glass again. "It's barely eleven AM, does this make us Alcoholics?"

"What time did you wake up?" Cloud asked

"Before 5, couldn't sleep."

"Then no."

"We all got messed up sleep schedules right now," Cid said. "Just don't get drunk." He pointed to the empath with the same hand that held his pint glass, "And don't drink alone, dammit."

She smiled, "Spoken like the deviant uncle I never had." She reached her glass up and the three clinked them together.

"I like to think I'm more of the cool older cousin."

After a few more minutes of chatter, they realized it would soon be time to discuss their strategy going forward. The three downed what remained of their drinks and in a move that some would consider wildly unprofessional, went to their meeting with a buzz.

***

The Highwind was equipped with a number of purpose built rooms other than a bar. One of those was the operations room, which was really just a conference room intended to plan specific things in. All nine members of the group known as Avalanche were arranged around the table with Cloud at the head. It was a similar to when they had been here right after picking up Ralena and Red XIII, but the mood was completely different. Last time there was a strange mix of joy and self-deprecation. At that time Cloud told everyone about what Tifa had helped him with, about the truth of his world and the illusion he had built for himself. He told everyone then that he had no plans to give up, and he wanted everyone to take a day or two to rest up and relax a bit. They had new objectives and needed a new plan and he wanted everyone to think about what that meant for them.

Now it was time to talk about this new phase of Avalanche's existence. "Before we get into anything else," Cloud said, "We need to address the elephant in the room… or should I say mog-riding-cat?" Various expressions turned in Cait Sith's direction, who had the sense to look sheepish. "At this point, I assume we all know that Cait Sith is a spy for the ShinRa." He turned to the robot in question. "We need to know, Cait Sith. Where do you stand?"

Cait Sith looked around at everyone, then sighed, "I'll admit, I'm split down the middle. I've come to think of all of you as friends, and I don't want the ShinRa to capture you. But, to at least some degree, I also have to do my job. If I don't, they'll find a way to take control of away from me."

"Are you still on their side?" Barret asked pointedly.

"I am against Sephiroth," Cait Sith said plainly. "Right now I think you guys need to keep the Doom Marble because you would be better at-"

"Wait," Yuffie interrupted, trying not to laugh, "Did you just call the Black Materia the 'Doom Marble'!?"

Cait Sith shrugged, "It's easier to say, and less a chance of getting flagged if they pick up a conversation from me. Anyway, I think you are better to hide it, and there are people within the ShinRa that I would _really_ rather not get their hands on it."

"I bet one of them wears red and high heels," Tifa muttered.

"What are your limitations?" Vincent asked, "Or is 'conditions' a better term?"

The cat crossed his arms as if in thought, "If you actively plan to make a move against the ShinRa, I may have to report it. If I think the end result nets more against Sephiroth I may let it pass. That being said, the less I know ahead of time, the less I can report."

"Plausible deniability," Cid said with a bit of distaste.

"Precisely. In a similar vein, I will not tell you any of the ShinRa's plans unless I think they will hurt you directly… but I also don't have to tell you that I don't have access to every plan, for example, I rarely know the Turk's orders."

There were several long seconds of consideration. Before Cloud broke the silence, "With a few conditions, such as minimal involvement in mission planning, I am ok with keeping Cait Sith on board. Any objections?" A few looks went around the table, waiting for someone to speak up. In the week following the Northern Crater he had been instrumental in helping with the break out from Junon. "Ok then, moving on. We need to discuss next steps and our needs. Our first priority is keeping the," he chuckled slightly, "Doom marble away from Sephiroth and the ShinRa. Suggestions on that?"

"Mobility," Cid offered.

"And a shell game," Vincent added. Cloud gave the man a questioning look and gestured for him to elaborate. "We make identical cases to the Black Materia box," he said, "then we split up, travel in small groups and meet back up with the Highwind at irregular intervals. As few people as possible, say one in each group, should even know if they really have it. While travelling we can consider also doing small missions to see to our needs."

The group considered this and after a brief discussion agreed that it would probably work. The only caveat being that at least two of them should always be with the airship as added security. That done Cid brought up another issue.

Money.

"I hate to say it, but we need money and a lot more then we used to." With the Highwind and her crew they had more people to feed, and they would eventually need fuel cells for the ship in addition to equipment. Cid insisted on paying the crew as well, even if the crew was willing to be part of this for free. The high of the mutiny and rescue would wear off and the reality of no income would hit the young bucks sooner than expected. They wouldn't be able to manage much, but something was better than nothing.

"If feeding is part of the concern," Nanaki said, "We can always hunt."

"Yeah," Ralena agreed, "If we just need random time off ship a few of us can do that. How many of you can dress an animal?" A few members of the group looked just plain confused at her terminology.

"Well, one time we put Red in a troop uniform," Barret said.

Yuffie and Nanaki sniggered. The redhead sighed, "I mean skin and butcher it." As it turned out, only Ralena and Yuffie felt capable enough to raise their hands. Nanaki technically knew how, but had never done it himself, for obvious reasons.

"I think more of us might have to learn how…" Tifa said reluctantly.

"Better have your vomit bucket ready," Yuffie suggested with a grin, "When I first did it, it was not easy."

"We'll be in the wilderness, a bucket will not be necessary," the red feline said.

"Anyway," Cid said, bringing attention back to the topic at hand. "I got a list of our assets from the quarter master and what he thinks we'll need in terms of supplies on a weekly basis." Aside from the things required to keep The Highwind going, it had a garage with a few land vehicles, a chocobo stable that currently housed three birds, including Iris, and a small armory. The armory was geared towards troops and therefore consisted mostly of firearms. Aside from Vincent helping himself to a sniper rifle and a second pistol, it was mostly untouched.

"One more order of business," Cloud said, "What do we want our secondary mission to be?"

"What do you mean?"

"I know Avalanche was originally about saving the planet, which I think we are sort of doing by keeping the Black Materia out of Sephiroth's hands. But while we are running around the countryside are we going to do that aimlessly? Are we just doing it to feed ourselves?"

Tifa looked at him, "So you're saying we help people?"

"I'm asking if that's what we want to do. It's not like the ShinRa really do a lot for people in the small towns." Well… aside from having really aggressive barbeques.

"But would we know where to go?" Barret asked.

"There's net postings for monster bounties," Ralena said, "There's likely something similar for other needs."

"A few of the crew come from small towns," Cid added, "I can have them check in with home, they can put the word out that we're looking to help." The group quickly came to a consensus, as long as it didn't put the Black Materia within dangerous reach of the ShinRa, then they should help out where they could. They were sure that in the future there would be a call to go against the company again. Otherwise, they really did not care if they pissed off the ShinRa anymore than they already had. With that settled, Cait Sith excused himself and they started discussing their next steps in more detail.

***

Reno and Rude were reviewing all of the information and gear they had gathered about the escape.

There were pictures of the "monster" that was on its way to Junon. The blown apart remains of a sea plane rigged with a remote control, a sonar beacon, a giant fake head covering the whole thing and trailing a serpentine arrangement of junk to make it look bigger than it had been, just to get them to use the Sister Ray, which they had somehow rigged to cut the power when it fired. He was certain that, if there was enough of the plane left, they would be able to identify it as the Tiny Bronco.

Next, the equipment collected from the streets of Junon was spread out on the table. Most of it was store bought items, speakers and phones with audio files and simple software to trigger them remotely. Sounds like fading footsteps, and simple conversations in Wutaian. Innocuous phrases like, "It's time to go," and "It is ready?" But, as most people in Junon didn't know a lot of Wutaian and the volume was low enough that it made it difficult to make out the exact words, it had been enough to result in vague reports and send Heidegger into a near panic.

A few devices had been connected to crude mechanisms to set off smoke grenades and flares, flash bangs or fire crackers. Some of these were independent of a phone, and operated on a timer alone. All of this to simulate explosions, fires and gunfire. When the power was off in Junon, the idea of not being able to see the enemy was a given, and Avalanche used it to their full advantage. Instigating chaos and confusion, scattering ShinRa's forces and drawing them away from where they escaped to.

He had no doubt who planned most of this. He could see the handiwork of Highwind in the mechanics, and he knew from the guards who got jumped in the press room that Kisaragi had been in disguise as a journalist. If he had to guess, he would bet that Tuesti had something to do with the power going out and maybe some of the electronics. That man better have some good answers once Rufus got back to the tower.

Reno turned to Rude and allowed himself an honest grin, "Shit… they really upped their game."

****

"Do you really think this will work?" He asked her.

"I don't know, but it's the only thing I can think to do right now."

"Yeah… at least Cloud got away with the Black Materia, so_ he bought us time_." The last part sounded like a clip from a movie spliced in, something Zack had said once upon a time to another SOLDIER.

"_I'm a little confused though…_" Aerith said with a memory of Yuffie.

Memories were the language of Lifestream. It was often easier to show each other what they meant than to actually try to speak. Normal speaking meant pulling enough of one's self together to form the words. They were getting better at it, but it was a significant effort. Zack had taken talking as a personal challenge, it was like when he used to do squats and pushups all the time when he was restless. He liked trying to switch back and forth too, which made Aerith feel like she was talking to a soundboard, not that she was much better.

"By what?" he asked.

"I thought his mother would be here… it would probably help."

Zack was confused, and he asked with a memory.

"_My mother's name is Jenova,_" Sephiroth said as they approached Nibelheim.

Aerith shook her head. "_Lucrecia,_" The name was spoken in Vincent's voice, a hint of wistfulness colored it. She brought forward her memories of Vincent explaining Sephiroth's origins.

"Oh… that would have been nice to know five years ago…" Seeing the man in red, Zack was confused, he mixed a memory into his next sentence. Past confusion mixed in with the present. "_Wait, how does this guy know?_ Isn't he Sephiroth's age?"

She sighed and showed him snippets of conversations with Vincent and Ralena.

"_I found him in a coffin in the basement… he'd been in there over twenty years._"

"_I got in Hojo's way… shooting me was the least he did… it is why my limit break is what it is._"

Images flashed in front of Zack of the Galian Beast.

"Geeze," Zack said, "When you put it that way,_ I think I got off lucky_. Well… except for the dying part."

She smiled and shook her head at him, Zack certainly had a way with finding the bright side of things.

"_Alright_," Cloud's voice this time, "_Break's over._"

Zack laughed, "We don't have enough for our next drop yet? _What about those?_"

"I'm saving them… for the right time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> \-- longer rant that was supposed to be spread over the ends of a the past few chapters --
> 
> I had originally planned on having the whole plot of the game be the backdrop for my story.  
But After I decided that Ralena would tell Tifa about Cloud being in Nibleheim before the Norther Crater it made less and less sense for Cloud to have his break and give Sephiroth the Materia.  
At first I pushed forward, because I had already skipped ahead and wrote scenes that were dependent on in game events. Also it would entirely change the plot if Sephiroth didn't get the Doom Marble that was the Black Materia.  
So I kept working on the story and tweaking it, wondering where I would put the scenes I wanted and how I was going to tweak the timeline to make it all work. As you know by now, I decided that Cloud giving Sephiroth the Doom Marble (in this context) was dumb and decided to change the plot there... but then what??
> 
> For starters, fluff and character development, I hope you're ready for that in the coming chapters :).  
I will also tell you that the last quarter or so of this plot keeps warping in my head. I know what I want the final destination to be, but the path I take to get there has a lot of potential paths and detours. I've narrowed it down to a few, now I just have to see what meshes with the end best.  
  
I also now have a section in my notes for "deleted scenes". This is what happens when you write stuff from the last quarter before the first one isn't even finished.


	23. Dread and Hope

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Worthy opponent; A New Admirer; Practice; The Red Cliffs; Musing on Heroes; Nanaki's room; A Dream Full of People;

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's killing me, but I am not touching the FFVII remake until it comes on PC. I cannot justify buying a PS4 for 1 game. I am also trying to avoid all of the BEAUTIFUL looking videos so that I can play through it myself without spoilers (the game is out less than a week and someone already posted all of the cutscenes on YouTube :(] ) .

"Oh SHIT!" Barret yelled as he dove behind a rock barely large enough to shield him from the lighting blasts that covered the battlefield.

"Down boy," He heard Ralena say, her voice deep with bloodlust. She spun around violently to slash the creature across the chest, her blades trailing red light behind them as he felt a drumbeat reverberate in his chest. The giant roared at her, and brought down a massive fist that she barely dodged and threw debris into the air.

"You got the Phoenix down, right?" Barret asked Cait Sith.

"You don't really plan on letting them kill each other do you!?"

"If you gotta way to snap them out of it, I'm all ears!"

When Vincent had asked to be on the same team as their red-headed companion for the first mission out no one was surprised. The only consideration was that they shouldn't both use their limit breaks at the same time as it would be too unpredictable. More than happy to agree, they had gone off to take care of a monster bounty. It was for a small town where a nearby eye-bat colony was getting dangerously large.

What no one had realized was that Ralena's Dance of Kali also had her emanating her bloodlust, which triggered Vincent's transformation and that the two would proceed to beat the ever loving crap out of each other once their enemies were defeated.

"What about the Time materia?" Cait Sith asked.

"SHE has it!" Barret pointed as Ralena leapt into the air behind them.

She jumped over the Death Gigas, but was blasted by lightning upon landing. A manic chuckle escaped her lips as smoke rose off of her body, "That tingles." Rushing in again with a war cry, she spun at the last moment to dodge another punch.

"Contain?"

"He has _that_ one." Barret poked his head around after another flash of lightning and renewed the barrier spells on his comrades, he could at least keep them alive until they figured something out. Good thing he had already swapped the Barrier materia out with the redhead.

"Seal?!" The robot's voice was getting more frantic.

"With the other group!" the gun armed man growled.

Rubble rained down over their heads as the monster busted apart another rock when it missed her. She was much faster, but a single strike from the Gigas would easily break the barrier spell and another would likely put her down. There was no telling if it would be for good or not.

"Oh! I know, use _Remove_!"

"What? That only works on enemies!"

"You're not a very good dancer, are you big guy?" A wicked laugh came from her lips and she spun around behind him, the barrier cracked as she struck of his sides with her blades, and her sword sunk partway into flesh before she drew back. The gigas roared and before she could withdraw far enough, lighting came from his body and traveled down her side-sword which she dropped from the shock.

"Do you think of them as allies right now!?" Cait Sith wailed, "If we remove one from the fight the other one should calm down!"

Despite his protests, Barret had already begun to switch out the orbs on his gun, the green one shrinking to fit into the special slots designed for them.

The empath rolled on the ground, barely dodging a blow from above, which resulted in a small crater next to her. The barrier protecting her lit up as larger rocks struck it.

Barret began to chant the spell.

She rolled to the other side, but this time the Death Gigas grabbed her by the lower leg, lifting her off the ground.

Barret stood and aimed the magic at his comrades.

The monster disappeared in a beam of blue-white light and Ralena fell to the ground with a thud. A scream of rage left her throat as the battle crazed woman lost her worthy opponent.

***

It was nearly ten minutes later that Vincent rejoined the group, walking up from behind where Ralena was sitting. When he stopped beside her she stood, but refused to lift her head and look at anyone. For a moment the two of them stood, side by side, scratched, tired and bloody. Her clothing was ripped and torn showed plenty of signs of the damage she had taken. With his transformation, Vincent's clothes were almost entirely intact, but he was clearly walking gingerly, likely to do with the cuts the Death Gigas had received.

Barret stood to look at them, crossing his arms. He didn't have the heart to lecture them. Their limit breaks made them go out of control, even he had felt a little battle hungry when she had kicked into gear. "He's back, _now_ will ya let Cait heal you?" he asked.

Vincent looked turned to look at her, she kept her gaze down, but nodded to Barret. She appeared distressed by her actions. Ralena had never lost control like that, never attacked a friend and found herself unable to stop. Vincent knew what that fear was like, but he had never had it manifest until now. Before he… the Others, had done little more than menace his friends. Unlike himself, where he was taken out of the driver's seat, he was willing to guess that she _wanted_ to fight him in the moment.

"It's alright," he said quietly, then, to her surprise, he chuckled, "the two of you were… having fun." She turned and looked at him as the green glow of the healing spell surrounded them. In her eyes there was a kind of desperate hope, that he wasn't just saying that. He put a supportive hand on her shoulder. "We'll do better next time."

"For starters, we're goin' to be switching some materia around," Cait Sith said, handing a grateful Ralena the Mending materia for her clothes, "…again."

"If I had my way, we'd stop and take a day to work this out." Barret said, "But we all know we ain't got that kind of time if we wanna make our pick up window."

***

"-and then Tifa boosted me, so I was up SUPER high, and I threw my Shuriken, it struck the thing, I caught it on the way back down_, then_ I landed on its head and landed the killing blow through its freaking _eye_!" Yuffie left out a proud sigh of satisfaction, "Yeah, I was awesome."

They were in the conference room of the Highwind, they'd long since gone over the basic results of their missions. When Cloud asked if anything interesting had happened, Yuffie had launched into a rather detailed, if slightly skewed, rundown of her team's mission for the last ten minutes.

Cid took a desperate drag of his cigarette, inwardly vowing to never _volunteer_ to go on a mission with Yuffie. "So… anything exciting happen to you guys?"

Barret sighed and leaned forward, taking a moment to look at the empath. She shrunk herself into her chair a bit, but nodded. His eyes turned to Vincent, who somehow managed to look like he was standing alone in the small room, leaned against the wall, farthest he could be from anyone else. Red eyes returned the glance and the gunman tilted his head slightly. Barret stood up, "The Death Gigas and 'Lena got into an ass kicking competition."

"Hardly seems fair," Cid said, "It's not like it can really rack up a kill count since it's not out all the time."

Barret shook his head, "They were kicking _each other's_ asses. We got a little more info about 'Lena's new limit break to discuss…"

The woman had taken her loss of control hard, and ended up taking a very different fighting tactic for a few encounters after, playing it far more cautious then he had ever seen her in order to avoid using her limit break. Barret took it upon himself to take her aside before anyone else. He gave her a modified version of a speech he had been working through for the former Turk himself. He reminded her that, as a group, they were prepared for this, they had already been through it with Vincent plenty of times. When she tried to protest he stopped her, explaining that the first time was an exception, since they didn't know what would happen. Just like fighting anything, the first encounter is always the most dangerous. The preventative tactic was a simple matter of her giving warning and allowing Vincent enough time to move further back, and that had worked for the rest of their trip.

"Okay…" Cloud said after the recap. "I wish we'd gotten to hear that before Yuffie started." The shinobi girl in question pouted, but he didn't acknowledge it. "I think I might want to move up something that Red and I were discussing…"

***

A few days later, Cloud awoke feeling warmer than he expected a sleeping bag to be and with a weight on him that was unfamiliar. Blue eyes opened and he looked down. His eyes widened then narrowed at the beast that was laying across him. "Ralena…" he said with a quiet tone of warning. He didn't want to startle the creature awake, that was guaranteed to at least get his sleeping bag ripped.

Across the camp hazel eyes opened and looked at him from where she lay. Sleepiness soon gave way to annoyance, and she pulled herself out of her own sleeping bag. "Really you two, I swear…" Iris was laid out next to Cloud and sleeping with her head across his chest. Her owner stopped halfway over to them and further examined the situation with a tilt of her head, and eyes slowly gaining their glow.

"I thought you said she wouldn't give me anymore trouble," Cloud grumbled through his teeth.

"Nooo…," she started an amused smirk growing on her face with understanding, "I said you wouldn't have any more _dominance_ issues."

He moved to lift the bird's head with his one free arm, and it cooed slightly as it stirred. "Then _what _do you call this?" Suddenly, the woman started laughing, waking both Red XIII and both the chocobos in the camp. "What's so funny?" He asked as Iris woke and lifted her head. Cloud sat up and managed to pull himself out from under her and the bird followed and pushed her head against his. "Dammit, Iris, stop that."

The red head laughed harder before trying to speak. "I… I'm sorry," she got out, "It's just…"

"What?" He asked, irritated, still trying to shove the bird off.

Nanaki provided an answer, feline lips curled in a smirk all their own. "I think you have an admirer."

"You're joking…" He said in disbelief with a hint of emergent horror.

Unlike the green chocobo, Thunder, Iris was not staked down as her owner never feared her running away. Obviously this gave her the chance she needed to move over to the target of her affection.

In between chuckles, Ralena called the bird over, Iris reluctantly left Cloud's side and moved to heed the call of her mistress. Cloud was now regretting his decision that they bring the chocobos along, but they had agreed that speed was a factor in order to get to Cosmo Canyon in the quickest time they could manage. The birds were required to keep up with Red XIII's naturally long strides, the jeep was too likely to have an issue with the surrounding terrain, and the bikes were out for similar reasons and because Ralena could not drive one. Mixing a chocobo and a motorcycle was out, since even Iris, well trained as she was, would not respond well to running alongside the noisy motors.

It was planned that the Highwind would join them there later in the week. Normally they would not do pickups so close to a town, but it seemed most of the team wanted to go back to the red cliffs. Therefore, when they split up it was decided that both Cloud and Ralena should be there longer and see if Nanaki's grandfather, Bugenhagen, had any advice or help for them and their abnormal conditions.

The red cliffs of the canyon were like nothing Ralena had seen before. The rivers had carved their way through the mountains and the striped walls of the canyon added a beauty that she couldn't quite place. It also had more plants than she would have thought in the sandy and rocky terrain. Most of the plants were shrubs, but a few areas were thick with vegetation near the river basin. It was a stark contrast to the grey, lifeless wastes around Midgar.

As they began to set up camp that evening, Cloud was keenly aware of Iris' attention and asked what he could do to get her to go away. "Well for starters," Ralena said, "Don't feed her. If you have to, make sure she is last."

"Anything else?"

She shrugged, "Not really sure. Males aren't normally the ones who rebuke prospective mates."

By the time they got the fire going, Nanaki returned to the site, dragging dinner along with him. "Nice catch Nanaki," Ralena smiled admiring his kill from where she finished up feeding the chocobos. "Is that for us to share?"

He put it down near the fire. "It is. Have you had bagrisk before?" She shook her head, walking over to examine the reptile. "Careful of the claws. They can petrify if they scratch you."

"Really?" she asked intrigued. She moved the limp body around and examining it. It had six legs, green scales, a pair of short horns that looked like cat ears and a strange set of four feather-like scales on its head. "The legs and tail should be the easiest for us to cook up over the fire. Is the hide worth keeping?"

As Nanaki answered her with a nod, Cloud walked up, a sickened look on his face. "Can we really eat that?"

"Of course it's edible," Nanaki said indignantly, "It's _meat_."

The hunter withheld a laugh, "Don't worry, I've made a study of how to tell what's safe for humans to eat."

"But you never saw one before…" he said, his voice a little uneasy.

"The people of Cosmo Canyon do eat these on occasion," Nanaki said, knowingly, "I can instruct her on safe preparation, it is not too difficult."

"You pay attention too, Cloud," she said, gesturing with the knives she pulled out of her pack. "You gotta learn these things if we're going to feed everyone."

Yuffie had been right about needing a bucket. Well, almost. Cloud did manage to keep his lunch down, if barely, as he watched and tried to listen to Ralena and Nanaki instruct him on how to dress a bagrisk for human consumption. It was not until the limbs were stripped on their scales and feet and it began to look more like vague haunches of meat that he felt comfortable again.

As they waited for the meat to cook, Cloud looked across the fire, and suddenly remembered something that he wanted to know about. "Ralena, I want to ask you a question."

"Sure, what is it?"

"What does Vincent do for you?"

She looked at him, confused. "What do you mean?"

Cloud leaned forward, "I've noticed when you're having a rough go of it, you tend to stick closer to him."

"I have noticed the same," Nanaki said.

"Is there something the rest of us can help you with?"

Ralena blushed. "I'm not sure _everyone_ can help, it can be a little… prodding."

Cloud was confused, "What do you mean?"

"When I'm… overwhelmed, sometimes it can help if I focus on one thing. One person. It means that I will be feeling _everything_ they feel. I had to do it with Vincent in Midgar, so he already knew about it. I also don't like doing it without permission, so I always ask first." She didn't want to mention the hand holding part, which wasn't strictly necessary, but certainly helped when things were really intense.

"Really?" Cloud asked, "I didn't notice."

"It's not always verbal," Nanaki said. "I had wondered what those exchanges were when I caught them."

"Ok… permission aside, can anyone do it? Why not ask any of us?"

"Sorry... Even though I have permission I try hold off from doing it as long as I can. In the crater I managed to keep to myself until we were fleeing. Also, if I'm on the verge of a panic attack focusing on someone who is… less than calm probably wouldn't help."

"So, Yuffie is out," Cloud smirked.

"Probably, and of course Cait Sith won't work. I'm sure Nanaki and Tifa are fine."

"And me?"

"No offense Cloud, but the bit of Jenova I can sense in you does not feel great. In a jam I'm sure it would be better than nothing, I guess."

"Ouch, ok…. What about Cid and Barret?"

She shrugged, she wasn't sure which of the two men was better. Barret had the temper of a raging elfadunk, but he could be a rock of support when he needed to be. Cid was always yelling or grinning, but sometimes his uncertainty and fear surfaced from underneath his bravado. "As long as I don't go into a really crowded space or city I should be fine," she said dismissively. She had made a point of staying in her neutral state as much as possible on the Highwind. The number of people on board was enough that she could exercise her control constantly, like light weightlifting. She felt like she was doing better, but it wasn't like she had really tested it yet.

"_Should_ be fine," Cloud echoed pointedly. "I want the others to know. We don't have to make a big announcement if you don't want. You can talk to everyone separately if you that's how you want to do it. But we are all here for each other." He smirked, "And even if you don't want to, I'm ok with helping you out."

"I am as well."

She smiled, she really should have expected this outcome, at least from these two. "Oh yeah… that reminds me, we never told you… about the other thing I can do."

"What other thing?"

"I never brought it up earlier because Vincent was adamant that we not risk the ShinRa knowing."

"Because of Cait Sith being a spy…" Cloud said for clarification.

She nodded, "Sometimes, if events are strong enough, I can see glimpses into the past." She looked up a Cloud apologetically, "That's the real reason we know what happened in Nibelheim. We did not find any security footage."

"So you knew I wasn't really a SOLDIER when we met?"

The woman shook her head, "I thought you were one, I just assumed you joined later, even if I couldn’t fathom _why_ after what I saw."

Cloud swallowed and looked off in the distance, "We were gonna be mercenaries."

"You and…"

"Zack. We were going to head into Midgar so he could check on his girl, then-" He stopped suddenly as a spark went off in his brain and his eyes widened.

"What is it?" Nanaki asked.

"Aerith…" he had a strangely horrified expression as he leaned back to stare up at the sky, one hand up to grasp his head, his fingers clutching at his hair, "Aerith was his girlfriend!" No wonder he always felt a little strange when getting close to her. He was hitting on his dead friend's girlfriend. She had told him as much, but it was at a time when he didn't remember Zack as a separate person. Maybe he had taken this living legacy thing just a little too far…

Ralena put a sympathetic hand on his back. "Given how jumbled you say your memories were, I can see how you wouldn't put that together."

"Yeah, but…"

"We should reach Cosmo Canyon tomorrow," Nanaki stated, "Hopefully grandfather will be able to shed some light on your respective… circumstances."

"Shouldn't Vincent have come too?"

Ralena shook her head, "He thinks he has a good enough handle on his… issues. He doesn't want to involve anyone else right now."

Vincent seemed to be coping with his limit break pretty well, at least as far as the Death Gigas went, but it seemed he wasn't able to use his previous form again. Which Ralena thought was a shame, she kind of missed Ulster. She had managed to bring out the purple beast in the mountains, but she had no intention of forcing the change on Vincent intentionally. Maybe once he was comfortable with the Death Gigas he could manage that. Limit breaks could be somewhat unpredictable, sometimes the person didn't get to pick which one they used. What was going on could change what came out. A running theory was that a person _subconsciously_ chose what they needed in the moment. But she didn't think that was true, her latest ability was not something she thought she should _ever_ be using when she had allies around.

***

The bullet flew through the air at the target, and just nicked the right edge of the wood. "Relax your shoulders," Vincent said, "and try not to anticipate the sound. You are flinching before you squeeze the trigger." He was a short distance from the Highwind with seven members of the ship crew, showing them how to manage fire arms. Weapon safety, proper stances and a few other basics. Since they had no other security on the ship, Cid asked for volunteers for some of them to learn. One was skilled with a rifle, two were otherwise familiar but not practiced and the rest had hardly ever handled any kind of firearm before. It wasn't surprising that the ShinRa did not encourage people outside of their own forces to be skilled with weaponry. People who grew up sheltered in a city, away from monsters, had much less need to learn. Unless you lived in the slums, which according to the others had the occasional monster lurking around.

Tomorrow, for those who stuck with it, he would review firearm maintenance in addition to another run at target practice. He went down the line again, giving what pointers he felt were needed. He wasn't sure that this was a good idea. Cid may have had the right idea about security, but these men weren't soldiers. They weren't trained to kill. It would be nice if they could get a hold of some of those fancy, materia slotted, stunning guns, but those were heavily restricted and expensive. He almost laughed at himself at the thought, as though they would obtain them legally at this point if they could.

It was a little strange to be on this side of the coin. As a Turk he hadn't always obeyed the law, technically, but when you were the shadowed hands of those who made the law, you could get away with a lot. All in the name of keeping the peace, of a better world. He supposed he had the same justification now. The only difference was that he wasn't working for the "empire" anymore.

That was really what ShinRa had become, an empire. A weapons and utility company that now ruled the four continents, or at least the "civilized" parts they bothered with. Positions like Mayor were still voted on, and in smaller towns those positions did have influence, as long as they stayed off of the company's radar and paid whatever taxes were required of them. Barret had told him about how the mayor of Midgar was basically a mouthpiece, petty and bitter that his efforts to gain the position were pointless in the end. Vincent could imagine that the situation was similar in Kalm and Junon at the very least.

Being on the other side seemed to make little difference to him. Only the details were different. The "castle" he was based out of was smaller now, and flying. With so few of them he also knew what was going on with almost everyone in it to some degree. Paperwork was almost non-existent, so that was nice. Vincent was still the same person on either side. Mission driven, focused, detail oriented. He found himself wondering if everyone would be the same. Everyone was who they were, and he felt relatively certain that they would be no different. If Hojo were non-existent, and what a wonderful thought that was, and they all worked for the ShinRa, he felt their team dynamic, bizarre as it was, would not change.

He heard a light curse as one of the crewman, Blake, seemed to be struggling with his pistol. Vincent shook himself out of his reverie as he walked over. It was pointless to think about such far off scenarios. He found that Blake had jammed the gun, he sighed and took this as an opportunity and called the others over for some instruction on how to clear it.

After they dispersed back to their "lanes" in the makeshift range, he moved to one end by some rocks. A noise behind him caught his attention and he swiftly turned. "You're dead," he stated calmly.

Wide brown eyes looked at the empty hand making gun fingers in front of her face. "Are you sure?" Yuffie asked, skeptically. "How do we know you could have actually drawn it before I got to you?"

Without a word he promptly turned, shot a bullet into each of the seven targets, holstered his gun and turned back to her. He raised a brow and it disappeared under his bandana.

Yuffie stared at the targets and the startled men for a second. "Fine, FINE! You win this round!" she said, stomping off back towards the ship.

"How many is that now Mr. Valentine?" Blake asked.

"If I were the type to keep score," Vincent said, "It would be 3 to 0, since yesterday, but she did get much closer this time." After they had dropped the others off, Yuffie had randomly decided that she was playing a game similar to tag with Vincent. She had started with the idea that it was anyone on board the ship, but she had "eliminated" almost everyone else already. Well, she _would_ have if Cid hadn't yelled at her about not "doing that shit on the bridge." The first time she had snuck up on the former Turk he almost reflexively pinned her to the ground. Once she recovered her wits, she quickly claimed it was because she wasn't prepared for him to fight back. Her objective now, was to get a solid grip on him, which she had yet to accomplish without him claiming a strike or kill against her.

It was a little annoying, but he couldn't blame her for wanting to have a little fun while testing her skills, she was still a teenager after all. It was also giving him a much better idea of how enhanced his senses were. He wondered if she would try it on Nanaki without warning and how that would turn out for her.

***

Cloud, Ralena, Nanaki and Bugenhagen were seated at the table he had on the first floor of his observatory. Ralena was relieved to see the rustic and homey appearance of the place. She had learned to associate any kind of science with clean white rooms, bright lights and lifeless yet somehow ominous beeping, and had expected to be very uncomfortable when she learned they would meet him at the observatory.

Ralena thought that Bugenhagen was an interesting character. Ancient by human standards, but healthy, wise and a little quirky. He had a little laugh that he used a lot, but his warm nature made it more endearing than annoying or creepy. She found it interesting that he seemed more playful than Nanaki, but she chalked it up to Nanaki striving to be more mature.

Then there was the fact that he floated around on what looked like a large materia…

"Ho ho hooo, I sense you were successful in stopping Sephiroth, but only partly." He said, after they had settled in.

"How did you know?" Cloud asked, but Nanaki seemed unsurprised that the elder knew what was going on.

"The planet still cries, but it is a little less intense and less often now. As if it has hope." He took a sip of his beverage, and smiled. "But that is not why you are here is it? If it was, you would have brought everyone I think."

"They'll be along in a few days," Cloud said, "But Ralena and I have… issues we would like your advice on."

Bugenhagen raised a brow, "Not relationship advice, is it?"

Cloud and Ralena shared a glance and then shook their heads. "No," he answered, confused that the man would even suggest it.

"Ah, good. I didn’t think so."

"It has to do with the fact that we were both subjects of Hojo's," Ralena clarified. "Our circumstances are different, but we'd both like your input."

"Ahh yes," the man said with some disappointment, "That young trouble maker." Ralena blinked at the elder, staring about the label he had given the man, confused to the point that she wondered if they were speaking of the same person. "Who would like to go first?"

After a several seconds of neither speaking, Cloud finally spoke up. "It turns out I was never a SOLDIER…" as he had told the others not long ago, he explained to Bugenhagen about his mixed memories and what he knew or remembered of the past.

Bugenhagen stroked his beard. "hmm… it seems you have a fair handle on it now, and what memories are real."

"Only because Tifa and the others helped walk me through it," he said. "I know the truth, but sometimes I don’t feel it. I still feel lost, like I don't know who I am."

The old man barely took a moment to consider before speaking. "You don't see the worth in how far you have come," he said. "You have climbed halfway up the mountain and can only see how far you still have to go."

"But how do I know what's me and what's Zack? How do I even know if the thoughts I have are my own?"

"People think alike all the time, and emulate who they admire, it is not so strange. Zack is not _in _you. You took on the traits in him you admire. I think all you really need is time. Time to think about who you are now. When you think of a color or a food or anything, how do _you_ feel about it now? It doesn’t matter if Zack also liked it. If you like it, you do, that is part of who Cloud _is_, not who Zack _was_."

Cloud looked as though he was about to retort, but stopped himself to think.

Bugenhagen smiled, he liked it when the young ones took time to really look at themselves. "While you think on that," he said, turning to Ralena, "Will you tell me your story?"

The redhead nodded and explained her background and circumstances. How Hojo had used Cetra cells or DNA and Mako radiation on her. She assumed it was some bizarre attempt to turn her into something similar. She explained to Bugenhagen about her empathic abilities and how she could sometimes see bits of the past.

"That certainly is a… different side effect," the elder stated carefully. "Can you not hear the planet?"

Ralena shook her head, "I've tried, Aerith attempted to coach me and all I got was more flashes of the past."

"hmm… perhaps the planet doesn't know how to communicate with you. Like trying to communicate with a deaf person when you do not know sign language. Or maybe you are not listening with the right ears. Even your…" he glanced at Cloud, "more normal friends have heard it when they were here. I'm sure Gaea will cry again before you leave."

The woman frowned, "That's an awful thing to try and listen for."

"Maybe that is why you don't hear it. That being said, you should not need to try. The planet's voice is very clear in the canyon. If you cannot hear it here, I doubt you can hear it anywhere."

"My inability to hear the planet is not my concern," she said, talking so much about her upbringing had her speech take on a formal aspect. "My issue is that my new limit break has resulted in me attacking my friends."

"To be fair," Nanaki said, "so far it was just the once."

"And it is not something I want to be repeated," she said sternly. At the elder's inquiry, she told him how she found her new ability and what had happened in the fight with the Death Gigas.

"I have told her," Nanaki said, as if in defense of his own counseling abilities, "that there is no shame in a little bloodlust every now and again."

"Ho ho hoooo, why do you find your new limit break to be a detriment?"

"Because I attacked a friend," she said, "I don't want to lose control and kill someone who is not my enemy." It was obvious that fear laced her voice.

"But he said you both were having fun, did he not?"

"He did…"

"Do you not trust his judgement?"

"Of course I do!" she exclaimed, and blushed at the rudeness of her response. "I mean… I trust him the more than anyone."

He studied her for a moment before asking. "What is your true fear?" he asked kindly.

She looked away a minute in thought. "You know about Jenova? How it changed the Cetra it infected?"

He nodded.

"And we told you about Sephiroth and Nibelheim…" she said, Cloud was shaken out of his thoughts when he heard those names.

"Yes…"

"I…" she took a deep breath, clenched her fists in her lap and fixed her eyes to a spot on the table. "I am _terrified_, that like a Cetra or Sephiroth, Jenova could twist me and I will do something… Something as bad as Nibelheim, something that would make no one remember me as the person I am now. That people will see me… the same way Cloud and Tifa see Sephiroth."

Cloud stared at her, seeing the visible effort she was taking not to cry. His hatred of Sephiroth was one of the few things he knew did not come from Zack. That was truly his own, or at least the seed of it was. He had never realized before that his hatred of the man might actually be painful to the empath. Was that why she asked him about the Sephiroth that existed before Nibelheim? Not only to know more of her lost friend, but to remind him that Sephiroth was once something other than the avatar of destruction that Cloud made him in his own mind.

As Bugenhagen began to offer the redhead words of comfort and advice, Cloud found himself turning his thoughts inward once again. He had more than just Zack's influence he should be thinking about.

****

The Cetra Bitch was actually _attacking_ him. He wasn't sure what with yet, but whenever she and her hound came by he felt different, somehow weaker.

As a Cetra, her natural ability to manipulate the Lifestream was greater than his own, making her able to pierce his spiritual armor. The Cetra that were in the Lifestream before her had avoided him, likely because they were afraid or had no personal investment in the living world. He did not realize the power she would be able to wield within the planet. Perhaps it had been a mistake to kill her, she probably would have been less annoying to him alive.

His own forces were growing, but it was agonizingly slow. Currently the SOLIDERs he had managed not to kill were all stuck against the wall, held up by rock he shaped with magic that Sephiroth had learned in the Lifestream. The changes were happening, but slowly. He had to pace himself, the Weapons were waiting within the walls and whenever he moved to spread his influence in them the chamber shook. 

"_There is no hate, only joy._  
For you are beloved by the goddess,  
Hero of the dawn, Healer of worlds"

"_Loveless again, you never change._"

Why had he thought of Genesis just now? _Hero_… _Healer_, such nonsense. It was true that the humans needed a hero, but they didn't deserve one. It wasn't like humans could produce a hero who was worth a damn.

_"Heroes need to have dreams and honor."_

Now Angeal's ideological foolishness came to mind. Angeal _could_ have been a proper hero, could have been the one to stop him, but like so many humans he lacked conviction. He had turned his back on his ideals, at least for a time, when he had learned the truth. He rejected what mother's gift gave him. His inability to balance his ideals and reality had lead him to committing suicide by combat with the very hound that he had trained.

_"Sephiroth, have you completely lost your mind!?... I trusted you!"_

The hound was dead as well, killed by the ShinRa who made him. Killed because of the power he wielded, because he wouldn’t stay where they wanted him. Where Hojo wanted him.

It seemed to Sephiroth that the humans had killed all of their heroes.

After all that who did they have left?

All they had was Cloud.

Just poor, little, broken Cloud.

No.

Not "poor Cloud." Sephiroth had underestimated him, that was why he didn't have the Black Materia now.

The Jenova-celled copy of Sephiroth narrowed his eyes, then moved a hand up, laying gloved fingers against an unconscious SOLDIER's neck. The glove pushed against the skin, then melded with it, when he withdrew, a reddish purple handprint colored the skin, then faded as it was absorbed into the man. Satisfied with this result, he moved his doppelganger to the next one.

Cloud was the icon of defiance, the mortal symbol of humanity.

Cloud was the one who had thrown him into the pit, the one who had refused him the Black Materia. He was the one that needed to be defeated. He was the one who had to try _and fail_. Sephiroth would prove to Cloud that he could not be stopped, no matter how hard humanity tried.

***

"…and that is how my people have flaming tails that do not burn."

Ralena smiled at him, "I like that story."

"I am glad you enjoyed it," Nanaki smiled back. The pair were in his room, sitting among the cushions in the center. After their discussion with Bugenhagen, Cloud wanted to take more time alone to talk with the man. Ralena had decided to go in another direction. Nanaki had such a different take on her bloodlust that she asked him to tell her more about his people and their lore. She wanted to see if their battle forged wisdom was something she could better relate to.

The Feline's ears twitched and he looked up, "Do you hear-"

After a second it was clear that she did. Her hands were covering her ears, her eyes were shut tight and she looked to be in pain. The sound, the feeling was overwhelming. It was like the ground had bubbled up under her and consumed her spirit. A blur of images washed over her mind, like a flipbook of random photos. There were a few themes among them, silver hair, feathers and people with slitted pupils. Before the cries of the planet died away, tears were running down her face and Nanaki was at her side, a paw on her shoulder. "It's not him," she whispered, "That's not all he is."

"Sephiroth?"

"It's so afraid of him," she gasped. "I don't know what to do…" her body was shaking with sobs. Nanaki nuzzled against her head, as a feline, physical contact was his natural method of providing comfort. After she broke through her emotional wall at the Gold Saucer it was a rollercoaster of moments in which the reality of Sephiroth's current actions would hit her. They came at random times and each time she mourned Sephiroth as though he had died. For much of that time Nanaki was the only one there to comfort her, as Cait Sith had to focus on mission prep. "I don't even know if it's him anymore, or how much of it is Jenova."

Nanaki frowned at the statement. She had not seen Sephiroth partially reformed and encased in materia. Sephiroth was completely different than the Jenova-celled copy they had been chasing. He had no idea what he was and he made a note to himself to talk with his grandfather about it in more detail.

"All anyone thinks about is the monster he is now." That wasn't necessarily true, many people, who were not in the know, remembered him as a hero of the Wutai War. The people around her, however, were another story. Cloud, Tifa, and now Yuffie and Nanaki had seen what happened at Nibelheim. Before the vision was presented to them, Yuffie had grown up hearing horror stories of ShinRa's Silver Demon from the war. The Avalanche members who had come from Midgar remembered the bloody trail of bodies he had left behind. Most significantly, they had all seen Sephiroth kill Aerith. Ralena was the only one among them who really knew the man he used to be. "I honestly can't blame them, but… " she took in a steady breath, "I just want my friend back."

"It is not a bad thing to hope for redemption," Nanaki said sagely, "so long as you understand that it may not come to pass."

She leaned against his red furred neck, "But I don’t know how to help him. I can't even _reach_ him, or see him. He's in the middle of a thrice damned crater! I mean, do you think he has a phone in there?" In her distress, she asked the question seriously, but when it sunk in, they found themselves smiling about it, and she wiped her tears away.

"All living creatures are mutable, all living creatures can change. Some slowly, like a path over plains, others drastically, when they see nowhere to go but over a cliff. When one finds themselves in a slot canyon, sometimes you must travel down it before you have the chance to find your way out again. Sometimes you cannot get out on your own. Right now, he is stuck on a dark path with only Jenova as company. He is in the crater, wrapped in materia, and surrounded by Lifestream," Nanaki thought a moment, "perhaps you can reach him that way."

"But I can't do the things the Aerith could."

Nanaki shook his head, "I think you imagine that Aerith had some power to control the planet, or guide its will. She could not do that anymore than I can change yours. She could talk to it."

"Then why suggest it?"

"Words can change one's will, one's actions. You cannot make the planet do anything, but you can _ask_ it."

She looked at him doubtfully, "I never thought praying did much good." Praying and the planet was certainly not what got her out of lab, that had been Sephiroth. She didn't even know what praying was until she moved to the farm.

There was the slight rumble of a chuckle that she felt from him, "They may not, but it could make you feel better, and you never know… the planet may listen."

"I doubt it, it's too afraid of him."

The great cat nodded, "It may be that Sephiroth would hear you..." She looked up at him, hope sparking in her green eyes. "I shall teach you some techniques I know of," Nanaki said, "If Aerith's methods did not work for you, maybe mine will."

"I'm still a little shaken, can it wait a little bit?"

He nodded, "In the meantime, tell me a story about the friend you remember," the feline said. "A story of when his path was beside yours."

***

Vincent found himself standing in the battle arena of the Golden Saucer. But it seemed grander then he remembered. She was standing across from him, blades held at her sides and hungry smirk on her face.

"If you don't want to fight, you can just watch." Ralena said, lifting her side-sword and pointing behind him. "I'm here for the big guy." He didn't have to turn as he heard the Death Gigas, Talos he had dubbed him, behind him, a familiar low rumble emanating from its throat.

Vincent looked confused between the two for a moment, then awareness came to him. Another dream.

Vincent found himself thinking that The Others had taken to using his dreams as a kind of playground. They were using his experiences and the places he had been to set up their own little backdrops. He supposed he couldn't blame them, after twenty plus years of isolation and stuck in a loop of memories of Nibelheim, they seemed to jump at the "new content."

"What? Don't we count for anything?" Yuffie asked. She and Nanaki were also in the ring, Vincent was standing in the middle of the four of them.

He looked up and he could see people watching. Scattered among the empty stands was most of the members of Avalanche and the Turks, including his old partner Veld. Lucrecia and Hojo were there as well and he scowled slightly at the fact they were sitting near each other. Even the Telly's and Flynn could be seen further in the back. When had his world become so full of people?

"Anyone in the ring once the match begins is part of the free-for-all," an announcer said. A deep male voice he couldn't quite place.

"Three..."

Ralena's smirk broadened into a hungry grin and a red glow surrounded her.

"Two…"

Her clothing shifted into that of a primitive war goddess and Vincent found himself leaping into the stands, landing somewhere between Aerith and Lucrecia.

"One… Begin!"

The battle was underway before the announcer finished the word. The Shuriken left Yuffie's hand, flying towards Nanaki as Ralena dashed across the field, turning sharply to dodge a lightning bolt from Talos. She ended up rolling along the ground before leaping back to her feet.

"Man… I should've gone in," he heard an upbeat male voice say, "I haven't been in a good fight in ages!" Confused, Vincent turned to his left, where Aerith obscured his view of a man that sat next to her, all he could make out was his spiky black hair. Vincent didn't recognize this person. How was he here?

"Oh, let her have this one," Aerith said to the man, "She's got a lot to work out."

Vincent could hear the joking manner in the man's reply, "And I don't? Oh! Nice hit!"

Vincent turned back to the fight for a moment, then to the various reactions in the crowd. Hojo was watching intently over steepled fingers, while Lucrecia just winced occasionally beside him. The redheaded Turk, Reno, was yelling like an angry baseball coach, though from the opposite side of the stands Vincent couldn't tell who he was pulling for, if anyone. Most of the others watched with varying levels excitement.

Yuffie ended up getting knocked out first, and Cid operated some sort of small flying contraption to lift her out into the stands.

Vincent moved to sit a seat away from Aerith. In the seat between them was a plain box, about the right size for a coffee mug, _For Safe Keeping_ written on it. "I'm surprised you're here," he said to her, "I didn’t think you liked this sort of thing."

"I know they'll be alright, so it's ok" Aerith said. Turning to him she smiled, "Have you met Zack?"

Red eyes opened in the dark, the now familiar background hum of the Highwind's machinery the only sound he could hear. He didn't remember the face of Aerith's friend. Only the spikey black hair and Mako blue eyes, like Cloud's. That was strange. He knew who Zack was, but to see him was curious. Perhaps his dreams were beginning to shift more to what normal people experienced. Meeting people you never met. Going places that you knew, but they were somehow different than reality. He still had his fair share of nightmares from Nibelheim, but they were quickly fading into the minority.

Still, something seemed out of the ordinary, and he wondered if it was a sign of something else.


	24. Crossing Paths

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Performance Review; Bar Stop; All Wet; Rust & Blood; Taking Watch; Traditions & Sake

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> FYI The update for (5/1/2020) has been taken up by a one shot side story "Hojo's Closet" (Series Link: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1546723 ). It features.... Elena and Kunsel? How did that happen? Anyway it runs parallel to chapters 20-24.

****

Rufus stood on the balcony of his office, a rock glass in hand and overlooking Sector 5. He _almost_ reached down, then tightened his fist. He had moved his hand to pet Dark Nation, but she wasn't there anymore. His faithful guard hound had been dead for months now and he still missed it. Was it a sign of weakness to miss something after it was gone? His father would have thought so.

Maybe that was why Rufus didn't miss _him_.

He shook off those thoughts and finished the rest of his alcohol in a single gulp. For a few seconds he looked through the empty glass at the scenery and debated just dropping it over the railing. Given the shape of the tower it wasn't likely that any glass would even reach the ground. But one could, one little piece, thrown by the wind, could make it all the way down, where a person happened to be looking up. It could land in someone's eye and they could potentially lose sight in that eye for the rest of their lives. One, tiny sliver of glass…

He shoved the thoughts aside and turned to go back into his office, taking the glass with him. Rufus did not like waste. There was no point in throwing away something that did its job and wasn't broken.

Rufus walked over to several folders on his desk. Each file bearing the name of different department heads. Some of them were off to one side, as they were of little import to him. Human Resources, Medical, Facilities and several others with mundane concerns who were doing their jobs well enough for now that he could worry about them later.

There were four in particular that he had been mostly concerned with. Not only for the departments they oversaw, but their involvement in his father's plans and now his own. He had been watching them and their reactions closely since he took over. Now it was time for him to consider their performance.

Reeve Tuesti had good ideas, but by now he was so used to being shot down that he rarely fought anymore, only bringing up his concerns once. Rufus did notice that the man seemed to get the details he wanted though. He made sure the big picture got approved. Clearly, to a degree it had worked, either Reeve knew how to spin it, or his projects really did have the lowest failure rate. He had been involved in the development of the Mako reactors, he and his teams had laid out the plan for modern Midgar, including the trains, roads and utilities. Reeve was a man who tried to plan for long term development but who had always been hampered by President Shinra's desire for fast results.

There was one problem with the man, though. His side assignment had brought in a conflict of interest. Avalanche was now considered his "friends," and the man himself carefully worded the amount of involvement he "certainly did not have" in the escape from Junon. If he wasn't competent, sane, and manageable compared to the other department heads he was worried about, he'd be under arrest on suspicion of treason. At least for now he was still making reports, threadbare that they were. Avalanche had caught on to his true role and now left him out of all of their planning… Oh well. Rufus supposed that if he ever wanted to get Avalanche to come to him he could arrest the man. Until then, he was doing good work.

Nathan Heidegger was a pompous egomaniac who passed a lot of work onto his underlings and then took all of the credit. He was also a quantity over quality kind of manager, which was the opposite of Rufus' own preference. If someone like Lazard was still around, Heidegger would have been out on his ass after the two from Rocket Town had escaped. Unfortunately, the man's abusive management style had cowed nearly everyone under him so Rufus had no idea who was competent. He couldn’t remove him without a replacement either. His office was over the police, the military, SOLDIER, and, technically, Administrative Research. After Lazard defected and then Sephiroth went MIA, Rufus' father had been too lazy to hire a new director for SOLDIER and just added the job to Heidegger's responsibilities.

Rufus would have to start peeling pieces off, perhaps starting with finding a First Class that could take over as director of SOLDIER. He could probably sell it to Heidegger as alleviating his responsibilities. In the meantime he could keep him in Junon for a while, that would give Rufus the time he needed to see who under him in Midgar was capable.

Rufus narrowed his eyes in thought, it certainly said a lot about his father's management capabilities when you considered how many people in competent, high level positions betrayed him.

Rufus smirked, himself included.

Scarlet Percy was at least good at her job in terms of weapons development. But her laugh and flirtatious nature grated on Rufus. He wouldn't have been surprised to find out she had slept with his father. Her lust for power in all its forms certainly meant she would have at least tried. She did allow some of her people to take credit unlike Heidegger, mostly for components or weapons that worked, but did not suit her style of big, flashy, and destructive. He'd have to see if it was possible to curb her obsession with massive guns into more portable and regularly useful tools. Or at least see if she would get one of her people to scale it down. It would be conceivable to keep her around if he could manage that.

Hojo Ishii was a difficult one. A man who seemed to have used his few successes to justify decades' worth of research and development. He had figured out how to mass produce aspects of the Jenova Project into the treatment that made SOLDIERS into people capable of superhuman feats, that had played a huge part in ShinRa winning the Wutai War. There were a few other less publicized projects as well. Hojo had also helped breed Rufus' own Dark Nation, the barrier generating beast that had been his guard dog and pet, who had been killed in Rufus' first encounter with Cloud.

His lip curled up for a moment, but he turned his thoughts back to the task at hand.

Rufus wasn't a person who only saw the profit and results, like his father had. Rufus had seen the castoffs and the failures it took for success. The disposal paperwork for the science department was an outline for an entire horror movie festival on its own. That was not even including the occasional escaped subject.

With the information Elena had been uncovering for him, Rufus was beginning to suspect that Hojo’s closet full of skeletons was a walk-in at minimum. Rufus told himself that the amount of people was not the problem, it was the fact that a number of those were valuable and qualified individuals was troublesome.

He had taken both a skilled Turk and a First Class SOLDIER as test subjects at different times and hid the fact, reporting them as dead. Rufus knew it would never have been approved. Especially with Fair, who would have given a debrief that would have blatantly showed a failing in Sephiroth, Hojo's prize project. Again, if Lazard had been around at the time the investigation into the missing SOLDIERs would have been more comprehensive. Valentine, Crescent, Faremis, Strife, Fair; all people who went missing as a result of his machinations, and those were only the notable people that he knew of _so far_. Never mind the fact that two of them were actively working against the ShinRa right now, three if you counted Sephiroth. Veld, the last head of the Turks, found out his daughter had been a subject as well, the end result of that was the number of Turks at ShinRa being reduced to a third.

Hojo's superiority complex made him a pain to deal with, which was forgivable, but it also made him sloppy, which wasn't.

There were two big problems with replacing Hojo. The first was obvious, he knew too much. Right now they needed all the knowledge he had, and until Elena could coax it out of the documents at the ShinRa Manor _and _Rufus could find someone he trusted to read and understand it, that made him irreplaceable. The other problem with replacing him was similar to Heidegger, but more insidious. Whether he did it on purpose, or it was just the way he was perceived, Hojo was damn near a _god_ to most of the science department. If there were any that did not look up to him, or did not like what he did, they were hard to find. They either refused to voice these opinions or got sent to do remote work that kept them out of Hojo's way.

The best he could do right now was cut back his budget and turn down some of the requests that came through. Rufus was sure that would not be enough. Hojo was a crafty and patient man, he could probably work around any limitations that Rufus put before him.

Rufus sighed, poured himself another drink then sat back in his chair. He _couldn't_ just get rid of the man now. If he took Hojo away from the Science Department he would have to put him straight into a box. Whether that box was a cell or a coffin had yet to be determined.

****

Reno stepped out of the ShinRa car he parked on the side of the road and looked at the small town he had come up to. A little over an hour south of Costa Del Sol, Granhall was probably just a little smaller than Kalm, but compared to Midgar, almost everywhere seemed small.

He locked the car, tugged down on his suit jacket and strode towards the nearest bar. They had managed to gather enough intel to imply that Avalanche would be here. He had barely walked passed two buildings when he saw a jeep parked alongside one of them. A quick stroll over and look at the plate confirmed that it was the jeep from the Highwind. He sighed and deflated a little bit. Were they even trying?

They had done so well with the Junon pickup, how could they just drop the ball like this? He shook his head and continued on into the bar. As soon as his eyes adjusted to the dark he took in the other patrons and his shoulders slumped slightly.

This was just disappointing.

He pulled up to a stool, leaving an empty spot between him and the blonde man already sitting there, and ordered a beer. "At least make me have to ask around next time," he said in a crestfallen voice.

Cid nodded and looked over from his fish and chips. "Well not every stop in for food warrants a week long prep session. You hear to bring us in?" he asked.

Reno turned towards the pilot, "_Technically_, the mission is intel," he said. "Unless you have the object."

"Me? Nah, that thing gives me the willies." Cid said, dunking one of his fries. "Is that what you guys are calling it, 'the object?' Sounds pretty lame."

"Oh yeah? You got a codename for it?"

Cid chuckled, "Yeah, we do."

The pilot clearly wasn't going to tell him. Not an important detail to force though. The redhead casually rested one elbow on the bar, "So who else is in town?"

"Why?"

"Intel."

"_Why_?" the man clearly thought Reno wanted to know for another reason.

Reno sighed, sometimes he hated the smart ones. "I haven't scrapped with you, Kisaragi or Walker yet. I was hopin' to finish out the set."

The pilot looked confused, "Walker?"

"The swordswoman," Reno clarified, his tone oddly crisp.

"Oh, yeah, 'Lena." Cid shook his head, "They ain't here. Basic in town supply run this is, the young ones like fighting too much to bother with this shit. And I gotta tell ya, once I'm done eatin' this, I won't be in any condition to fight." Not that they would never do a supply run. Cloud had explicitly said he wanted Ralena to go into larger towns more often, her weakness around crowds was something they could not risk in the future.

Reno slumped back down into the seat. "Yeah… the mood's left me anyway. What's their deal anyway?"

Cid cast his eyes sideways, so that he didn't have to turn away from his food, "Whatta ya mean?"

"Why are Kisaragi and Walker on the team?"

The pilot let out a chuckle, "Didn't Cait Sith tell you?"

"I know what he said when they _first_ joined. You can't tell me everyone tells the truth when you first meet them."

Cid scoffed, "You are the type that would think that."

"Ok, maybe not the _whole_ truth, then."

"Yuffie's a young punk," the pilot shrugged. "She's just doing what she thinks will get her what she thinks she wants while feeling rebellious. But she's a sixteen year old Wutai native, so if there isn't some underlying anger there I would be shocked."

Reno had already figured that part out. Given her age, Yuffie would have been around ten when the Wutai War ended, and her earliest childhood memories would have come about during that conflict. No doubt it was full of stories where boogie men were replaced with ShinRa soldiers. "And Walker?"

Cid smirked and shook his head at the strict way he referred to everyone by their last names, even when it wasn't her real one. It was like they thought only other Turks were worthy of being referred to by their first names. "I'll be honest, I'm not sure anymore."

"Doesn't she have something against Hojo?"

"-pfft- those of us that weren't after him, hate 'im for what he did to those of us that are."

"So… which end is she on?"

Cid narrowed his eyes at the Turk. He remember the fight she and Cloud had about her wanting to save Sephiroth, but that was a lot to unpack, and he did not get it either. There was no way he was going to air his friend's dirty laundry to this enemy agent she had never met. "Sorry, you're not gonna hear it from me. If you wanna know, you gotta ask her."

"If I knew where to find her I would."

"-hmph-, Good luck with that."

Reno sat back and resisted the urge sigh. "So, What kinda supplies are you here for?"

The pilot shrugged, "Mostly food," he gestured to his plate, "And damn is this good, we ain't got a fryer y'know."

No they wouldn't. Exposed hot oil in a ship of any kind was just asking for trouble. "What are the others up to?"

Cid took another bite and shook his head. "That's a no go, mister. "

Reno cursed internally. He hadn't built up the casual rhythm of the conversation enough for Cid to let his guard down. He should have asked a few more innocuous questions to get the rhythm of conversation going before asking what he really wanted answers to. He was out of sorts and let himself get sloppy with his social technique.

"What are the Turks up to these days?"

"The usual. How are you guys making money?"

"The usual," Cid echoed.

"Which is?"

"Wouldn’t you like to know?"

He would, actually. That was why Reno was asking, if he knew it could narrow down future leads. There were suggestions that they were helping more remote communities with local problems. There had also been a few ShinRa operations that had been disrupted recently that could have been the fault of Avalanche, but it was hard to say for sure. Still sitting, he turned his body towards the pilot, "So tell me, what do we gotta do to get you to come back?"

Cid stopped chewing for a moment and looked at the Turk, his eyes going hard before he swallowed. "You got a lotta fucking nerve asking me that."

Reno put up a placating hand, "Look, I'm just the messenger. Most of you didn’t even join the group until after they left Midgar. The boss would be willing to compensate several members of your group if they would come work for the company."

"Fuck. You."

"I bet he'd re-open the space program."

There was barely a spark of longing in the pilot's eyes as he put down his food and turned fully to the Turk. "That would be great, but this ain't just about that for me anymore. If you had any idea how much the others, how much _my friends_ have suffered at the hands of the company you wouldn't _dare_ ask me that fucking question."

Reno let a his casual act slide away for a moment, and leaned in seriously, "How much more likely would it be for me to get some 'yes's if a certain scientist's head was on the table?"

Cid blinked, surprised at the straightforward nature of the response. Then he leaned back in disgust and reached in his pocket to pull out money for the food. "This is what I can't stand about you fuckers, you treat people like goddamn poker chips. Yeah, we hate that bastard, and all of us would feel better with him in the ground." He dropped the cash on the bar and threw back the rest of his beer. "If _you_ don't like him, _you_ do away with him. Don't wave him in front of us like a goddamn dog treat." That said, he told the bartender to keep the change and stalked out of the building.

Reno looked from the man's back to the basket of unfinished food and frowned. That certainly went worse than he had planned.

***

Cid pulled out his cigarettes as he walked away from the bar. Internally fuming at the typical ShinRa bullshit. He didn't hold it against the Turk personally, he had heard similar things come out of Vincent's mouth. It must be something to do with their training, or the kind of person it took to become a Turk. At least Vincent was well aware that the others didn't think the same way.

After the pilot got a few buildings away from the bar he took a deep drag then pulled out his phone. "Hey, Conners, code T-N-T. Move the party." After a brief confirmation he hung up. The helmsman would relay the message to the other groups. The secondary pickup schedule would have to be followed. Which meant he didn't have as much time to linger and browse around as he would have liked. Reno said he didn't feel like fighting right now, but Cid didn't want to stick around in case the man changed his mind. Right now in town it was just himself, Tifa and crewman Blake. Tifa could probably got toe-to-toe with Reno on her own, but Cid didn't want a fight if he could help it. He looked at his watch and sighed, Blake would have to cut his family visit short too.

Oh well, that was the price of the life they chose. He wandered off to go find Tifa, and made a mental note to check the jeep and goods for bugs and beacons before the Highwind picked them up.

****

"No, I don’t know where they are," the brunette said several days later, adjusting her glasses as she looked out the kitchen window.

"Have they contacted you at all?" asked the man on the other end of the phone.

"Yes, but I told you last time," she sighed, "the captain just asks about the rocket."

"Let us know if they stop by."

She pursed her lips, "I doubt they will… yes, have a good day." She hung up the phone and then turned back to her guests who had remained silent during the phone call. "Sorry about that," she smiled, "Does anyone need a refill on their tea or coffee?"

"No, Shera," Tifa answered warmly. "Thanks again for putting up with us."

"It's no problem, besides you're guests of the captain." The ten of them were crammed into Cid's dining room-kitchen. Cid sat at the table with Cloud, Barret, Tifa and Red XIII who was sitting on a crate from outside. Yuffie was hanging out near Shera by the kitchen counter that she had been told to get off of when she sat on it. Next to the door to the garage Ralena sat on a work stool, with Cait Sith next to her and Vincent was leaned against the wall at the near end of the hall, arms crossed and head down.

With the phone call concluded, and hospitality addressed. Cid continued re-capping of his conversation with Reno. "When he just found me in the bar, I swear, it looked like I kicked his dog or something," Cid said, " I think Vincent spoiled him."

"Who are you talking about again?" Ralena asked.

"Reno, he's one of the Turks," Tifa clarified, "The one with the red hair."

"How did _Vincent_ spoil him?" Barret asked confused. The man in question looked up, interested to hear the answer.

Cid smirked, "I think after Junon he was expecting a bit of a challenge in finding us."

"What did he say?" Cloud asked.

"Oh… something along the lines of, 'At least make me work for it next time.' Then he asked who was in town." Cid shook his head. A few others caught a brief exhale from Vincent that could be interpreted as a laugh.

"And you just… talked to him?" Cloud asked again, as if not believing it.

Cid shrugged, "I ain't got history with him, like some of you."

"What did he want to know?" Barret asked.

Cid shrugged, "Whatta ya think? He wanted to know what we were doing, where everyone was. I didn't really tell him much, other than that _I_ was in town for supplies and fried food." Shera gave the captain a disapproving look at that, but said nothing. "I got him to tell me that he wanted to know if Ralena and Yuffie were in town, since he hasn't scrapped with them or me yet. But when I told 'im you girls weren't around he just didn't seem up to botherin' with it."

Ralena laughed, "So what? You didn't wanna tussle with him just for the sake of it?"

"Pfft! No," the captain replied, "Unlike most of you, I'm an engineer first, and he knows it."

"Come to think of it," Tifa said, "have you even met the Turks yet, Ralena?"

The woman shook her head, "Not really, I wasn't in great condition when were caught outside the crater. Suits aside, I don't think I could pick any of them out of a line up."

"Anything else, Cid?"

Cid told the group about the part where he tried to recruit him, and how he turned him down. "Did he actually offer up Hojo as a bargaining chip?" Barret asked.

"Technically, he asked _if_ Hojo would be a good one."

"Only for one of us," Cloud smirked, glancing over at Vincent. The red eyed man just shifted his eyes to him from where he stood, then closed his eyes shaking his head slightly. "But even then, I think at this point we all need a lot more than that to seriously consider it."

The conversation drifted from there with wild wish list items that the ShinRa would never give, at least not without too many strings attached. After a little while they agreed to move themselves to the pub where they were to meet some of the crew and a few local engineers that Cid had hoped to get to join The Highwind. The crew they had was great, but for a ship that size they had too few people to keep up with a proper maintenance schedule and to get the rest they really needed.

Cait Sith returned to the airship instead of joining them, claiming the need for sleep in another time zone. Vincent said he would come along shortly, as he wanted to get a few things before the shops closed for the evening. Red XIII ended up lounging outside on the front porch of the bar.

As a whole, the atmosphere in the pub was good natured and not too rowdy, even if they did take up half of the available space over several tables. The engineers who were interested in joining up were happy to come along, but had been asking for stories of what kinds of things the group had been up to.

Cid cut Yuffie short on her story, much to her annoyance and they were getting their second round of drinks when Ralena and Barret wrapped up talking about their first mission after the rescue. "... And then I ended up in the river _again_," Ralena said shaking her head, "I don't know why, but every time I travel with Vincent, I get wet."

There was a moment of silence during which Cid snorted and muttered into his beer. "I can think of a few reasons."

Shera turned to the man, appalled at his comment, "Captain!"

Alcohol encouraged snickers quickly spread through the room and Ralena slowly turned red. "What? I... no.. I didn't mean-!" The room devolved into a fit of giggles and barely contained laughter as the mortified redhead shrunk down into her seat and wondered if she should crawl behind the bar.

"I don't get it," Yuffie said, turning to Barret, "What's so funny?"

"Nope!" Barret didn't even look her way, "Not going there."

"Aww come on!" Yuffie prodded.

"If you don’t get it, I don’t think any of us are telling you," Cloud put in.

"And it's not _that_ funny," Tifa said.

Ralena was rescued from further embarrassment as the waitress came over to take food orders. just as the server left for the kitchen a fresh wave of chuckles went across the crewman. "Hey 'Lena," Cid asked with a wicked grin, "Need a towel?"

She looked at the pilot confused. "No, why would I need a-" She stopped as Vincent moved to sit in the empty seat she had saved next to her, having her back to the door she hadn't noticed him come in. A fresh blush came over her and the empath excused herself for a minute, citing that they forgot going to ask what Nanaki wanted to eat. A chorus of snickers followed in her wake as Tifa cast a dirty look at the captain and followed after the other woman.

Confused at the reaction and sudden exit, Vincent turned and arched an eyebrow at Yuffie, who was across from him. "Don't ask me what's so funny," she pouted, "They won't explain it to _me_."

****

"Ok," Ralena said as they were about to leave the Highwind. "The objective of this mission is to take out monsters that look like mechanical constructs of animated scrap. We all have our materia loadouts for that kind of enemy, right?"

"Yes, mom," Yuffie drawled. It was only the second time the monster hunter had asked. Cid lit a cigarette and Vincent just nodded in response.

Ralena tried to ignore Yuffie's peanut gallery comments, "We got at least three days of supplies for camp?"

"Yah, and I remembered my tooth brush, too." They had been doing this stuff for nearly a month now. Why did they have to do such a regimented checklist _every time_ they left the ship?

Ralena gave the careless teen a bit of a glare, "Did you also remember to put on clean underwear?"

"N- I mean yes!"

Cid snickered at the flustered shinobi as Vincent just shook his head. A small town had put up a monster bounty for trouble they were having with monsters in a nearby wreck of an Artemis Class Ship. While the reward itself wasn't that great, they decided that the possible opportunity for spare parts, or at least scrap they could melt down, was good enough.

When they were done with their supply check they disembarked from the ship to get into the jeep that had already been unloaded from the cargo bay.

***

After arriving at the beach, it was relatively easy to tell that they would have an easier time getting into the wreck at low tide. "It looks like we'll have to wade out to the sand bar," Vincent observed.

Cid smirked, "Aren't you glad you brought a towel?"

Ralena glared at him, "Of course we brought towels, it's a _ship wreck_ by the _ocean_."

Vincent and Yuffie shared a confused glance. There was a clear teasing tone from Cid, and it was a reference that Ralena got and was not happy about.

"The tide's almost out," Vincent said, "we may as well head out now, we don't want to get stuck on the wreck during high tide."

"I should have brought Iris…"

"To be fair," Yuffie said, "We didn't know it was that far out."

"We shoulda known better," Ralena said as they took their first steps into gentle waves, "Country folk have a different idea of 'far'."

"Ya gotta fair point there," Yuffie agreed.

"Are country miles somehow different?" Vincent asked, there was a subtle humor to his voice.

Ralena thought a moment then responded with a question of her own. "How far was your nearest neighbor?"

"We had a yard," Vincent said, "so about… fifty feet to the fence."

Cid whistled, "A yard in Midgar? Ain't you fancy?"

"It wasn't _in_ Midgar at the time."

The empath brought the conversation back to the subject at hand. "You've been to the farm, Vincent, our nearest neighbor was close to a mile away. Since there isn't much between the two, we don't consider a mile far. Everything's closer in a city, and you have to pass so many things in one mile, it makes it _seem_ further."

Vincent gave it some thought, he was used to thinking in absolutes, klicks and miles, "far" was relative. Not just distance, but time, density of features and terrain all likely played a part. Wading into waist deep water certainly made the wreck seem farther than it seemed at first.

They were barely halfway to the sandbar when they noticed several of the scrap-monsters crawling on the ship's deck and coming down the side to the now exposed sandbar. They cleared a few from a distance with range and magic. Knowing animated monsters tended to have cores, they moved to pull some apart when they got to the sandbar to look for the weak spot.

Cid pushed his spear into one, planning to pry it open and suddenly heard a squelching noise. "Oh hey, it's soft on the inside."

"What?" Ralena moved over and helped him pry some of the outer layers of metal off. "It's not a construct. It's _wearing_ the scrap… I think it's… a crustacean."

"Sweet," Yuffie grinned, "that means I can fry-"

"Nooo" Cid interrupted.

"Why not?"

"We're going onto a fucking metal ship. Do you know how electricity _works_?"

"I was gonna use fire," she pouted.

"Go for Ice," Vincent suggested, "Fire will heat up the metal and could burn us just as easily."

"And don't you dare suggest we eat these, 'Lena." Cid warned.

"Oh Gaea no," she responded, "we'd all need a tetanus shot after that."

With a plan in mind they went aboard the ship and made their way into the cargo hold. There was a large hole in the roof near where they entered and a few other smaller ones that allowed some light in. They spotted a long pile of debris along the low side of the ship and a larger mass at the far end from where they entered. "This is bad." Ralena whispered as they looked in.

Cid nodded, "Yeah, who knows how many of those things could be in there…"

Vincent stepped up and looked through the doorway, picked up a piece of metal and threw it a good fifty feet down the hold. Piles of scrap began to move, disturbed at the sound and attracted to it, including a large one at the far end. "I count twelve." The others stared at him and he raised a brow in question of their reaction.

"Did…" the monster hunter started, "-did you just use the 'throw a rock' method of enemy detection?"

Red eyes met hers, a hint of humor hidden within, "Technically, it was scrap metal."

"Right…" She sighed, she couldn't argue that it had worked.

"Is it just me," Yuffie whispered, "Or does that big one have a small cannon on its back?"

"I see it," Vincent nodded, "Two others have guns as well."

They agreed to build an attack plan around the assumption that the weapons actually worked. They moved in quickly laying down _Slow_ and _Stop _spells against the back ranks. They managed to take down three with only minor injury before things started to get more dangerous. Yuffie got grazed by a bullet and they tried to refocus on the armed creatures. Cid and Ralena were quickly relegated to holding the line as the initial spells wore off and the seven smaller ones came scrambling towards them. The large one moved forward slowly, it's armor nearly scraping across the ceiling.

Cid cursed as one of them managed to close from his side, and slammed a rust coated claw against him. Yuffie managed to _Stop_ another one again, giving the two melee fighters a chance to focus and finish at least one more off. During the chaos of the moment, a glow was almost missed forming in the cannon on the largest crab.

"Look out!"

The blast flew across the cargo bay and struck Vincent, who had just dodged away from a smaller one that had gotten away from the front line. It struck slightly off center which cause him to spin around with the force of it. His gun fell to the floor and his jaw clenched. His shoulder and part of his face were burning in pain. Noise became muffled as he heard his blood rushing through his veins and the sound of his own skin sizzling.

The air became cold next to him as ice coated the closest creature to him.

"Is he okay!?" someone yelled in alarm.

"He's ali- _kuso_… He's changing!"

By now Vincent’s limit breaks were treated as a minor, rehearsed for disaster. Barrier and healing spells went up. Normally they would have moved to cover him, but with the metal floor and the Death Gigas' change involving lightning they instead pushed on the enemies, moving them back as far as they could safely. When it was over they would get out of the way.

Wind and dark smoke whipped around Vincent, instead of sparks and thunderbolts, which Cid commented on quickly. "Ohhh boy, I think we're gonna see a new model today ladies!"

"Can we not talk about him like he's a car?" Ralena asked, trying to force back a trio of the scrap crabs and getting a slice across the thigh for her efforts. Wincing, she backed up. At least Talos wouldn't electrocute them on accident.

Yuffie threw out another spell and sighed in relief as the largest pile of scrap froze mid motion. "Big one's _Stopped!_" she shouted.

Vincent's bandana fell over his face and warped into a solid white mask as his figure stretched up, taller, but with not much more apparent mass. Gaunt and oddly stiff in his stance, his clothes dulled to grey and became tattered, hanging off of him like rotted flesh, while his visible skin had turned a purplish grey.

Being in the back ranks, Yuffie was the first one to get a look. "By Hades, that is disturbing..."

Cid glanced back from his position, "What I wanna know is where did the chainsaw come from?" he pondered.

Yuffie turned to him confused, "What chai-"

The sound of the motor cut through the air as he pulled the massive device out from the remains of his cloak. It really shouldn't have fit. The chainsaw revved and the being moved forward. In a strange, almost lazy movement it swung its arm and chainsaw around swiping it across a crab that it stepped up to. The chainsaw sparked against the metal, the motion of it ripped off several pieces of scrap which went flying and pinged off of Yuffie's barrier. Another swing of the chainsaw and crabs hitting their barriers and the others remembered there was still a fight going on.

With the Hellmasker on the field Ralena found herself turning off her empathic senses. This one was different than the past two. It was filled with a mean streak and thirst that made her feel uncomfortable. Not knowing this one, she did not want to go berserk around it yet.

Fortunately, the cargo hold they fought in had plenty of room and let the others mostly stay out of range of Vincent's new form. They scattered, drawing the creatures apart as the Hellmasker gladly stalked towards the largest target in the room, ready to crush anything that got in its way. "Aww dammit," Cid cursed as he finished off one of the smaller creatures and jumped back to avoid another attack.

"What?" Yuffie called from behind him, throwing again from her position in the rear. "Everything ok?"

"Yeah," he said casually, "I think Barret won the pool."

"What pool?"

"The 'how many more limit breaks before Vincent's next form' pool."

Yuffie cast another quick spell and looked in his direction, "Wait… Really?"

"Well it's either Barret or Conners."

"The helmsman?" Ralena added, barely pulling back before the chainsaw came down in front of her onto a creature, she jumped back, trying avoid the splatter and debris. When the noise of the motor lessened, she continued. "How many people are in on this?"

Cid dodged, then shrugged, "Me, Barret, Cloud… About half the crew."

"Wait a minute…" The redhead said, letting the Hellmasker finish her opponent and stared back at Cid with a look of dawning disapproval, "is that what that 'VL Count' board in the bar is for!?"

The pilot would have grinned in response, but he was forced to do a quick retreat as one of the crabs shattered his barrier with a metal weighted claw. He repositioned himself and landed a blow of his own.

As the largest creature began to charge its cannon again, the Hellmasker swung it's chainsaw up and held a hand out in front of itself. A swirl of wind and strange lights circled the moving scrapheap, seeping into the creature before evaporating into puffs of skull shaped green smoke. When it had all cleared, the scrap collapsed in on itself and seemed to be empty. After a few seconds the others, who had finished off the remainder of the monsters, moved forward and began to push aside some of the metal. In the place of the creature was a frog, lamely stumbling around in circles before it fell over asleep.

Cid blinked at it, certain that there were a number of magical effects at work on it, only some of which were obvious. "That is one fucked up frog…"

As Yuffie stepped up to look at it, the Hellmasker lazily slammed the end of its chainsaw into the hapless amphibian and revved it. Now dead, the creature returned its original size and shape. With the chainsaw still running, blood and bits of crab meat splattered everywhere as it tore into the carcass.

"EWW, Vincent! Gross!"

In an eerie motion, the masked creature sharply turned its head in her direction, without a visible expression. The ninja took a step back. They had gotten oddly used to his other two forms and had almost forgotten that Vincent's control over each was a matter of experience. The chainsaw revved slightly and the ninja let out a startled yelp and backed up. Slowly it lumbered towards them and the trio backed away and took up ready stances. Several tense seconds passed.

Ralena, eyes now faintly glowing, sighed and sheathed her weapons. She stepped in front of it, easily within range of the idling chainsaw, arms crossed over her chest. "That’s enough," she said, channeling Ma Telly. She did her best to look it in the eye, the mask had no holes or features that she could see, so she had to guess. Times like this she was very glad for her extra senses, if she hadn’t known the creature was being... playful, she never would have taken such a bold approach.

It looked at her and it straightened up, it's head titled back, the others tensed again. A strange halting grunt came out repeatedly from behind the mask. "Is... is it laughing?" Yuffie balked.

"That is fucking creepy," Cid added.

The tattered fabric of its clothes writhed and covered the tall figure, then collapsed and the color changed to red. The cloak fell back into its normal position and revealed Vincent crouched and breathing hard. Ralena was already at his side and Yuffie joined her shortly thereafter. His clothes were intact, but half of his face was dark with burns. After several seconds of magical healing from a fretting redhead, a panted word came out of his mouth. "Thirteen."

They were all a little confused at that, "Thirteen what?" Yuffie asked.

Vincent raised his head and looked at Cid, a red glow fading from his eyes. "Put me in the next pool for thirteen."

***

It was damn cold. No, it was fucking cold. It was colder than skinny dipping with ice golems. The trooper on guard by the tunnel into the crater shook out his arms, then brought them back to cross over his chest. Damn did he want a smoke. It would probably warm him up from the inside, and a hit of nicotine just felt like what he needed right now.

The SOLDIERs didn't have to deal with this shit. Sure some of them were _technically_ on watch, but they were just hanging out in one of the Quonset huts, and did the occasional patrol. They didn't have to stand out in the freezing snow for hours on end.

Stupid SOLDIERs, they always thought they were hot shit just because they got dosed with Mako. Yeah they trained harder, but was it really harder _for them_? The Mako treatments made them stronger and more durable, it made them recover faster too. So did they really have it so hard compared to the average trooper like himself?

A gust of wind had him shivering for a second. He had heard that bad weather was expected to be coming in soon, at least that meant he would be able to stay inside the next few nights.

The sound of some rocks falling nearby caught his attention. He sighed and turned towards the source, it probably wasn't anything, just some loose rocks. But still, it was best to check it out. He took a few steps over and shined his flashlight out over the terrain. When the light hit the white snow it made the darkness beyond look deeper by contrast.

Yep… still just the side of the mountain. The tunnel into the crater sat there, silent and still, like the maw of a waiting monster. The wind moaned and sounded like a distant monster.

The trooper turned back and dropped the flashlight in surprise, it landed light end-down in the snow. A pair of glowing green eyes looked down at him in the dark, it was the only thing he could really make out of the man aside from his height and the fact that he wasn't wearing a helmet, he must have been an S-1. The eyes had the brightest glow he had ever remembered seeing, but he hadn't seen a SOLDIER when it was this dark before. The other man was standing uncomfortably close and he hadn't heard him come up from behind. Fucking SOLDIERs, sometimes they could be real weirdos… and real assholes.

"You aren't going to call it in?" The SOLDIER asked, he had a deep voice, and the trooper wasn't sure he recognized it.

The trooper scoffed, "A few rocks? No."

"heh," the SOLDIER's green eyes took a shape that suggested a smile. For some reason the guard felt there was something sinister about it. "Good."

***

The men of Avalanche sat in a large dining room at Godo's home in Wutai. They had arrived in Wutai earlier that day. After both seeing Vincent's next limit break and successfully tagging him according to her own rules, Yuffie had insisted that she had something she wanted to finish at home. Curious, and cautious of their materia, they had agreed to go, it would allow for some shore leave for the crew at least.

Without ceremony or flourish she marched towards the largest pagoda in town and challenged the man on the first floor. She explained that this was a test for Wutaian warriors. _Climbing the Pagoda_ she had called it. Avalanche went in with her and watched her fight her way through each of the five warriors meant to represent the Five Mighty Gods of Power. It had been rough going for her, but she had emerged triumphant and exhausted. The last warrior was Godo, Yuffie's own father. After he caught his breath, he insisted that they all stay to celebrate his daughter's achievement.

It was nearly two hours after the fight when the other warriors came in and took up seats opposite them. It was a traditional set up from what Vincent understood. The tables were set up in a squared "U" shape, they were low as well, made for them to sit on the cushions placed on the floor. Nanaki appreciated this, and referred to them as "tables of appropriate height."

Where the warriors sat was one empty seat, near Godo who sat at the bend of the tables, he assumed this was a place of honor reserved for Yuffie. Avalanche's side had three empty spots, two were between Nanaki and Barret. The third was next to Vincent at the end of the table. Here was a place setting, but it was a different arrangement than the others and had a small candle lit lantern sitting on the plate.

"Well, would you look at that?" Barret said with a smirk as one of the doors slid open behind the Wutaian fighters.

The other men looked up and saw two women entering the room. There was a moment where they wondered who they were, but red hair gave them the clue they needed to recognize Ralena and Tifa. Godo stood and approached them, arms wide. "Welcome ladies!" He greeted in a booming voice, "I must say those hanfu look lovely on you." As he said, they were wearing the traditional robe-like garb of Wutai, with their hair and faces done up as well.

"Yuffie insisted," Tifa explained, seeing the shocked expressions of some of the Avalanche men.

"I believe her words were, 'There's no way I am the only one wearing this formal stuff!'" Ralena supplied.

Godo laughed, "Well then, thank you for making her more comfortable. Please, come sit!"

"Where is Yuffie anyway?" Cloud asked, when he noticed the women enter without the guest of honor.

Tifa smirked, "I'm sure she wants to wait for us all to settle in before making a grand entrance."

As the women moved to take their seats Ralena noticed Vincent looking at her. The shadows of his hair made her unsure of his exact expression. Suspecting it had to do with her unruly hair that often came loose she made a motion to tuck any potential stray locks behind her ear, timidly looking away at the same time. Surely it was the unfamiliar clothes that made her feel so out of sorts.

She looked down at the cushion on the floor next to Nanaki and for the moment seemed to forget how to sit down, as if the garment she wore would not allow for it. Feeling a little stupid for her lapse, she decided to follow Tifa's lead and kneel down in the traditional fashion for now.

Shortly after the women took their seats a pair of servants walked in with instruments and began to play a traditional, but dramatic, notes. Yuffie's voice preceded her into the room, and her self-introduction was met with a mix of amusement, eyerolls and annoyance among the already assembled crowd.

"… The single white rose of Wutai. Feast your eyes on Wutai's greatest warrior, Yuffie Kisaragi!" There was a puff of smoke in the doorway, and a fan cut through it, scattering the smoke and revealing Yuffie, beaming with confidence.

There was some light applause from the more generous people in the room. Godo stood and proudly gave a short speech about the accomplishment of his daughter. There was a bit of back and forth between the two and it was not hard to see where Yuffie got her grandiose nature from. When they finally settled down, dinner was served and polite conversation ensued, mostly led by Godo asking questions of his daughter's friends and their exploits. Unlike in Rocket Town, Cid allowed Yuffie to tell the long versions and she was only interrupted when telling gross inaccuracies.

About an hour after dinner was cleared away most of the pagoda fighters retired, leaving the members of Avalanche, who had no time zone to call their own, to stay up and celebrate. As the night wore on most of them shuffled around the room multiple times when the other seats opened up. Unlike the others, Vincent had not moved from his initial position in the room. For the most part he sipped his sake and watched his friends enjoy themselves and wondering if they would end up drinking all of the alcohol in the house.

"Hey, 'Lena!," Cid suddenly shouted from the near the head of the table, "Vincent looks a little too sober over there, why don't you refill his sake?"

"She's not a _waitress,_ Cid," Yuffie slurred in annoyance, "gawd!"

Shaking her head the redhead moved over to the man in question, a bottle in her hand, and moved to the cushion at the end of the table. "It really is unnecessary," he said.

"Of course it is," she smirked "This is for me." He chuckled as she poured herself some and offered him the bottle before sitting down. "Can't I just come to sit next to you?"

"You can't sit there until the candle goes out!" Yuffie shouted at the redhead from across the room.

Startled, Ralena almost jumped to standing, then moved around to sit in the vacant spot on Vincent's other side. "Apparently I can only do it under certain conditions," she muttered.

"Yes, as long as you don't take someone else's spot," he said, finishing what was in his cup and taking the offered bottle to refill it.

"It's someone's spot?" Ralena asked confused.

He nodded, "Nanaki asked Gorkii earlier and I overheard." Vincent's eyes took on a somber look for a moment. "It is apparently a seat for someone who has passed. Their spirit is said to be visiting as long as the candle remains lit." He assumed it was intended for Aerith.

Ralena looked at him, then stared at the lantern. Her eyes lit up and searched the empty space. "Sorry if I sat on you," she said in the direction of the cushion.

Vincent looked at the spot then back at the redhead, raising a brow, "You can see something?"

Ralena shook her head, "I think I have had too much sake for that, but it's good to apologize just in case." A slight smirk touched his lips and they fell into a bit of light conversation.

It was not long before Vincent put his empty cup down and leaned back on his left arm, returning to his usual sitting position with his right leg up with the same arm resting on it. Ralena had seen it many a time on their travels. "Shall I tell you a secret?" he asked her, doing a good job of looking serious, but failing to fool her.

"Oh?" she replied with a coy grin, "You have no secrets from me, Mr. Valentine."

As she raised her cup to drink more, she looked across the room to where Yuffie was trying to get Nanaki to do something, as if disinterested in his 'secret.' He reached behind her, placing a gauntleted hand behind hers on the floor and leaned in towards her shoulder to whisper. "I'm not nearly as sober as Cid is giving me credit for."

She turned to look at him, his face was close enough that she felt his breath on her ear. "Really?" She asked smirking. She felt warm all over and a little giddy. She hadn't noticed it earlier but concluded the blame lay entirely on the layers of clothing she was wearing and the sake.

"Really," he replied stoically, not moving out of her personal space. His eyes held an intensity that she normally associated with him looking down a barrel. She attempted to match his serious expression with one of her own as he continued. "In return for this information," he said as though it was strictly confidential, "I want you to answer a question for me."

"What's that?" she replied, failing to look at all somber as the need to grin stupidly won out.

Vincent leaned out, looking passed her towards the captain who was currently laughing. His tone was suddenly more curious, "Why has Cid been bothering you about towels so much lately?"

The blush that had been stalking her suddenly pounced and she turned completely red. She kicked back the rest of her sake to stall and coughed. The cup was barely the size of a shot glass, but the clear liquid was definitely not meant for shooting.

Vincent leaned back a little bit, confused. "Is it bad?"

"It's a… uh…" she coughed again, "an inside joke. At my expense."

A glint of sincerity entered his eyes, "Should I tell him to stop?"

He started to move to stand and she threw out a hand, almost hitting him in the face but managing to land it on his shoulder. Clearly her coordination was beginning to suffer. "No, no! It's Okay. He's just teasing."

"Are you sure?", he asked seriously.

"Yes," she said. "Just… can you ask me a different question?"

He spared one last glare at the captain before leaning back, thinking for a moment. "What is your favorite sound?"

She gave an exaggerated several seconds of thought as she moved to refill her cup. "Wind blowing over long grass," she smiled, "…but your voice is a climbing the list." Her eyes went wide at the words that came out of her mouth. She really needed to work on her keeping her internal peanut gallery _internal_.

Vincent, having been momentarily distracted by Barret raising his voice on his other side, turned back to her. "What was that second part?"

Oh, thank goodness that alcohol affected his attention span. "Rain on the roof," she covered quickly, "A close second is rain on the roof." She took another sip of alcohol, which she seemed to use as punctuation. She would regret that choice later. "What about you?" she asked.

He raised a brow, a ghost of a smile curling his lips, "I thought I didn't have any secrets from you."

She smiled wryly, her embarrassment already forgotten in a haze of alcohol. "Just because you haven't told me yet, doesn't make it a secret." He smiled more fully and she leaned sideways, her shoulder pushing up against his. "So, Mr. Valentine, what is your favorite sound?"

"It may be because you just said it. But I also enjoy rain," he admitted, " but on pavement."

"Ugh!" she said in mock disgust, clumsily pushing him away. She almost managed to put her hand on his face, but he got his right hand up in time to intercept it. Their fingers intertwined briefly as she shoved against him. "You are _such_ a city boy!"

"And how country is 'wind over grass'?" he asked defensively, "Is there a rooster in your ideal soundscape?"

"No," she said, pretending to be offended and putting on a thick country accent, "But I have a chocobo and I ain't afraid to have her have sit on you!"

"She'll do it too!" Yuffie shouted from across the room.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: My husband asked me, Why does Rufus keep all of these idiots and madmen in charge? - Rufus' wandering thoughts this chapter was my attempt to justify this since, in my head cannon, he is competent.
> 
> OMG, so much fighting! This is what I get for writing a video game fanfiction and making Vincent's Limit breaks a part of character development. Also I'll be honest, I really don't like the Hellmasker as it is in the original game and I almost got rid of it entirely. But then I gave it a semblance of a personality and its… well better now.


	25. Breakdowns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Quiet Morning in the Mountains; Sake hangover; Mt Nibel -Mountainous Past; Her Room; Preliminary Findings; Loss of Comms; Dream Hellmasker; Towel shortage; Relays;

It was another quiet morning in Nibelheim. The robed figures had all wandered off weeks ago. Some of the ShinRa townsfolk had left to trail them, others stayed to maintain the town, and because they didn't have orders to do anything else. This was just the regular day to day, only now without any creepy test subjects hanging around and a lot less paperwork as there was nothing to report.

ShinRa had sent a small crew to clear out and restore the ShinRa Manor so that President Rufus could use it as an executive retreat. There were even a few SOLDIERS, which made sense, seeing as everyone knew the mansion was infested with monsters. That was fine, it meant there was something else to do and they may actually get visitors in the future.

Stay stocked as a way station, keep an eye out for Avalanche, report odd monster activity. It was looking like another day of waiting for nothing to happen.

***

Elena rubbed her temples. Despite having almost a month's worth of practice as it, trying to decipher Hojo's handwriting was an exercise in madness. It was too cramped for text recognition software to work. Some letters were more suggested than visible. He also had several short hand notations for frequently referenced items. She had figured out the prefixes for Mako mixtures and Jenova cell samples in the first week, but that didn't make much of a difference.

She normally was ok with data collection, she even kind of enjoyed it. But that was when one could actually _read_ the information. By now, she was faster than she used to be but, she barely understood what she could read, this level of science was over her head. It also meant that she couldn't just skim the documents as Kunsel had suggested, because that required understanding it. Her original plan had been to just scan everything and let the software sort it out, but Rufus wanted regular reports on the actual information. Every time she found typed pages or those written by other science staff she gave a little prayer of thanks. It was no wonder that Sephiroth went crazy. She just had to slug through it and do her best and take something for her headache.

Elena refused to hand this work over to the others on the data collection team. It wasn't in order to keep the details from them as a matter of confidentiality, her whole data team had been vetted and cleared for that. She didn't want them the see the details because they were _awful_. It hadn't taken long for her and Kunsel to agree that no one else needed to know everything just yet. The worst project by far was the one in which Vincent Valentine was the subject, Elena had stumbled across it and morbidly watched some video on the procedures. Hojo's notes were sadistically detailed and explicit about how he never used anesthesia on the man. While this was not true for later subjects, she didn't imagine Hojo had grown softer, simply older. She was sure that was the only reason he knocked out his later subjects was because strapping them down took physical effort and squirming people were harder to operate on. Her stomach turned as screams from one of the tapes she had watched came back to her mind. She might have needed something for a headache, but it would be a while before she needed something to help her stay awake.

She reached for her coffee and winced. Followed immediately by a mental note to not let Leon get her coffee again. He had a heavy hand with the sugar. It was probably the third time this month she had to remind herself of that.

A sudden dull boom shook the room, and the lights went out. Alarmed the Turk heard loose plaster fall from above. "Everyone, cover your heads," she said into the dark, unsure if anything would fall on them. The rumble of a second, deeper sound came through and she yelled for them to make their way into the hall where there was nothing to fall on them. As they groped along, the battery backups for the lights kicked in. Once they stood in the open space she listened and felt carefully for the next minute. While eyeballing the library, a few books and binders had fallen off of the shelves, but for the most part everything was fine.

Kunsel came trotting down the stairs. "Is everyone ok down here, Ma'am?"

"Yes, do you know what happened?"

"Not yet, I sent the Castillo and Wilson into town to check it out. Sadler and Church are checking the baby gates, in case it stirred up the residents. "

"Is anyone upstairs injured?" she asked.

"A few bumps and bruises, nothing to worry about," he said nonchalantly.

"As soon as we know what it is, I'll call it in. I imagine we'll have to go investigate."

"Of course," Kunsel grinned, the woman had buried herself in the work and he had a difficult time getting her out of the basement for anything other than sleep. Hopefully a side effect of this would be some exposure to daylight.

***

His head was throbbing and his throat was sore and dry. He knew that if he opened his eyes, he would be forced to shut them from the bright light, even with them closed he knew it was brighter than he wanted to deal with. He also knew he was on the floor. There was only one explanation.

Sake was the devil.

He could hear a few other people's sleeping breaths in the same room. He _knew_ he would be in for one hell of a hangover today, the likes of which he hadn't had since he was a rookie Turk.

Then again, it wasn't like he had drunk a lot of alcohol in the past two decades.

Slowly, Vincent mentally took stock of his limbs and found himself having difficulty moving his left arm. He turned onto that side, and cautiously opened his eyes.

His recovering brain didn't quite register what he was seeing. Something close to his face that was round and probably pale, blocked his vision of his arm. He wasn't sure of the color since he felt he couldn't quite trust how his eyes were translating the light yet. Whatever it was laid across his gauntlet, both forearm and hand. The part across his hand fit into it and had a vaguely cylindrical shape. 

It was warm, he could feel that through his glove.

He lightly flexed his hand, wrapping his fingers around it and found that it had a firm shape and a little give.

It moved.

The object in front of his face also moved a little closer and the other part in his hand twitched slightly. With all the caution of a curious six-year-old and the speed of a snail he reached out his right hand and grabbed the round thing near his face. It was flesh, a part of the body where bone was close to the surface. He quickly let go. Then he realized what he was looking at.

It was a bare knee.

He swallowed. Undoubtedly from his parched throat.

Slowly his eyes traveled up the skin of a shapely thigh before recognizing the folds of a robe and the fabric belt that held it closed. Unable to tilt his head back far enough to see who it was he forced his gaze back down.

Thinking about the colors of the robe and who was wearing what last night, it took a minute for his mind to provide him with the answer that it was probably Ralena. One of her legs was on top of his forearm and her other leg, or maybe ankle, was currently gripped in his hand.

He hadn’t let it go yet.

Slowly he pulled himself up onto his left elbow. Leaving the limb where it was for the moment but releasing her leg and looked around the room.

They were still in the dining room at Lord Godo's house. From what he could tell, every member of Avalanche, except for Cait Sith, had drank enough to not even bother trying to leave the room. It looked like the aftermath of a fun party, but a tame one compared to his late teens.

Cait Sith was parked in one of the far corners, he and the mog posed like one of those lucky cat statues. The Robot had managed to join them for a little bit of the festivities the night before. But since it had been the start of his work day, he hadn't been able to take much time. He did warn them that he would likely record most of the night to review and laugh at later, so they had better be careful.

Tifa was laying at an angle to Cloud, both were on their backs. Her head rested on his stomach and one of the blonde's hands was rested on her shoulder. Barret appeared to be laid out as if he had lost a boxing match, his legs under one of the low tables, and arms spread wide. Cid was face down, one hand still on a bottle which propped up the limb slightly.

Yuffie was draped over Nanaki who was lying on his side. It was then that Vincent acknowledged the only other conscious individual in the room. A sympathetic yellow eye looked at Vincent and the cat gave a great sigh, clearly indicating he knew that, if he moved, he would wake the teen, and so far he had decided it wasn't worth trying to extricate himself.

At last Vincent turned his vision back to the redhead that had entrapped him. She was sprawled out, her shoulders mostly on the ground and her torso twisted to where her hips were turned sideways, and her legs slightly curled up. Had her legs been straight out from her body they would not have been on his arm. From how they were arranged her body was mostly perpendicular to his and she had been "over" his head. She was close enough that he could have reached up touched her, but not so close that he could feel her body heat. Her bare legs stuck out from the folds of the robe, which was still cinched closed at the waist, the neck was half undone, showing her shoulder and a portion of her upper chest.

"_I should get to bed,_" he had said that at one point late last night after he and Ralena had polished off another bottle. He couldn't remember how serious he had been, but she responded quickly.

"_Oh no, you won't,_" Ralena slurred, grabbing his sleeve and tugging down before he even got a chance to try and stand.

"_Why not?_" he asked, sounding far more sober than he was.

"_We're bonding... as a group_," Tifa answered from across the way while swallowing a burp.

"Yeah," said Barret, "_so you have to stay_."

"_Don't worry!_" the redhead said heroically, swinging her legs free of her garb to rest over his thighs. She turned to him with a drunken grin, green eyes sparkling, "_I won't let him go._"

Bringing his mind back to the present, he looked back down at the smooth skin of her legs, which surely sported creases in her skin from his gauntlet and began gently moving them off of his arm. There was a faint feeling of something when their skin connected, but he was in no shape to even try to decode it. Once he disengaged himself, he quietly made his way over to the feline and, fighting a bout of dizziness, helped to remove his teenage blanket. He received a grateful nod from the feline who stretched and moved to where the sunlight shined in through a window.

After that it was a matter of searching for water, first for himself and then the rest. He found Lord Godo in a nearby room and the man didn't even need to ask before directing him to the kitchen for the water and said that he would have someone see to breakfast getting served.

Vincent sat down in the kitchen for a few minutes, sipping water and trying to settle the faint nausea and the throbbing in his head before going back for the others. Unfortunately, there was little he could do besides hydrate and wait. He was unfamiliar with the ingredients in a traditional Wutaian kitchen and would just have to wait for breakfast to be served before eating anything. At least it seemed something was already in progress.

When he got back to the dining room, a water pitcher in each hand, he saw that Ralena was now awake. Probably awakened due to his earlier maneuvering.

The fencer was sitting up, her back mostly to him. Now that she was upright he could see that her hair bun was still partly intact, several messy tendrils framing one side of her neck. One arm was reaching up, the other down at her side and her back was arched in a long languid stretch. The motion had exposed more of her upper arm and a he heard her spine pop.

As he stared, one of the servants came in with a tray of glasses. It was then that Vincent realized that he had only brought back the pitchers. Wordlessly getting his attention, the servant gestured to exchange the pitchers for a pair of full water glasses, he did so with a quiet, thanks.

At the sound of his voice, Ralena turned and squinted at him. "Figures you'd be awake first," she said, her voice a little hoarse from sleep and the dawning hangover.

"That honor actually goes to Nanaki," he said, handing her the glass of water.

Her gaze turned to the large feline sleeping in the patch of sunlight under the window. She gave a half-hearted smiled, "Could've fooled me."

Vincent surveyed the room again. It looked like Cloud was going through a similar waking experience as he had not long ago. The blonde's hand began to grope at Tifa's face in an attempt to determine what was on his stomach. The woman groaned slightly and swatted it away. Cloud turned red and suddenly looked very awake and mildly panicked, as he tried to figure out an exit strategy and whether or not he wanted to take it.

Aside from that, everyone awoke slowly over the next fifteen minutes or so as light chatter and the smell of breakfast roused them. Compared the previous night's festivities, breakfast was a somber affair, with quiet voices and the occasional grumble. For once no one questioned Vincent's proclivity for sitting in the darkest corner of the room. He would have hidden himself in his cloak as well, if it would not have made eating more of a chore.

Hardly anyone noticed when the black cat in the corner began moving again. Cait Sith's excited voice cut through the quiet like a bullhorn "Oh good! You guys are awake!"

Over half of the people in the room winced, Yuffie put her head down and covered it with her hands. "Please Cait, not so loud…" she moaned.

The toy looked around, then ducked his head apologetically, "Sorry," he said more quietly, "just got some news to share."

"Can it wait until we're less hungover?" Cid groaned.

"No, mostly because you are half a day behind me right now and I still have to sleep sometime."

"oh, right... Go on then."

"What is it, Cait Sith?" Cloud asked, of the faces he could see, their leader looked the most recovered after Red XIII

"The Mt. Nibel Reactor exploded 4 hours ago."

***

"I don't believe you," Ralena said, suspicious eyes staring across the fire.

"No, really. It's just like this." Cloud said sheepishly.

"Bull," she said.

Tifa came to the blonde's defense, "It's true. It has always been that way."

"Well, if it's long enough," Cloud added. "Remember when mom had me cut it short?"

Tifa laughed, "That was a disaster! You're head looked like a sick hedgehog."

"Ouch," Cloud responded, pretending to look offended.

Ralena gestured to the blonde's hair. "So… it just does _that _without you doing anything? And you weren't struck by lightning or anything?"

"Yes, it does." Cloud said. Then looked back to Tifa, "Whose question was that?"

The group took a moment to think back before Vincent answered. "Somehow that came out of Cloud asking about our favorite animals."

Tifa turned to the redhead, "That makes it your turn to ask something, Ralena." The four were camping in the Nibel mountains. After Cait Sith delivered the news about the reactor blowing up, they knew they wanted to check it out. Playing it safe they had the Highwind drop them off at the base of the mountain path where they had first met up with Vincent and Ralena. As speed was a factor it was decided that Cloud, Tifa, Vincent and Ralena would go.

Now they were just killing time while their dinner cooked over the fire. The fencer sat a moment thinking, looking around the camp. "I never asked before. What do you play, Vincent?"

"Hmm?" he replied as though he did not expect her to ask him directly.

"You can read sheet music," she explained, "So I assume you could play something…"

"Oh, a hidden talent?" Tifa asked, leaning forward. It wasn't exactly a juicy tidbit, but it seemed learning anything about Vincent was difficult to do, unless Ralena was asking. Or maybe it was just that she never felt afraid to ask.

"My parents had me learn piano as a child and I had a brief affair with the violin. I doubt I could play anymore," A hint of a smile could be spied over his collar, "but I remember how to read enough to turn the page at the right time."

Ralena giggled, "Only you would call it an 'affair.'" She turned to the other man at the campfire, "How about you, Cloud? Do you play anything?"

He shook his head emphatically, "That's a hard 'no' for me. But Tifa had a piano growing up. Do you still play?"

"Oh no, I've barely touched a piano since before you left Nibelheim."

"Ralena, how did you learn to play?" Vincent asked quickly, trying to move off the tender subject of their hometown.

"Um… _he_ told me he played," the empath said, blatantly not saying Sephiroth's name, "I think I was desperate for something that we could have in common. Someone put a beginner's book in with others for me to choose from. I made paper keys to practice on. Not long after, he brought in a keyboard for me to practice with and taught me."

There were a few seconds where Tifa and Cloud tried to imagine Sephiroth playing piano. Suddenly, the blonde was shaking his head and biting down a laugh. After a several seconds of this he spoke, "S-sorry I… I just suddenly pictured him in a sweater-vest and glasses tapping his sword like a metronome."

"He would _never_," Ralena said, scandalized by the thought. Thinking about it now, she had never seen him with his trademark sword while she was at the tower.

"I do find it hard to picture him with an instrument," Cloud said, watching tiny embers float up into the night sky. "He never seemed to be a man with… passions."

"That wasn't true," she defended, "but I don’t know what he was like around other people. I can say when he played it was almost the only time I could tell how he felt without my senses. He always seemed a little…" She mentally groped around. "I don't know. Like there was something he wanted to get out, but couldn't manage."

"I could say the same about Lucrecia," Vincent remarked, "Still, I wouldn't be surprised if he was emotionally stunted, being that man's son would be hard," he mused. He hadn't realized his mistake until it was too late.

"What?" a voice asked hoarsely. The others went completely silent as a short burst of horrified disbelief washed over them. Turning to Ralena, he saw the fear of discovery staring him in the face. She had an expression of someone going to identify a body. You knew what you would see, but until the cloth was pulled back, you could still hold out hope that it would be different.

Tifa watched the clearly distressed expression on the fencer's face. Both she and Cloud looked confused, but concerned. The two likely didn't realize _who_ he was talking about just yet. He and Ralena generally avoided talking about Hojo the same way she and Cloud did the same for Sephiroth.

In the relatively few conversations where it had come up, Vincent had only ever referred to Lucrecia as Sephiroth' mother, and never mentioned the father. It pained him too much to think of that horrible man touching her. But now Ralena had glimpsed the truth in his words, and there was no point in hiding it. Leaving her to wonder would be more cruel than the truth. How was it he always managed to ruin a good conversation?

"Lucrecia felt guilty, for being involved in the death of my father…" he said. The seeming change in subject threw them off, but by now they knew Vincent never said things unless he thought they mattered in context. "I never blamed her, it _was_ an accident. But the guilt she felt made her run from me... to Hojo."

Ralena reeled back, and her gaze turned to stare into the distance. There was the stark realization settling in. The man who had been her only friend and savior was also the son of her tormentor.

Cloud's expression had turned dark, he almost looked like he felt validated, but he bit back any comment. Tifa was downright flabbergasted, staring across the fire at Vincent. Even with as little time as she had spent in the scientist's presence the two men were so completely different that should couldn't imagine the type of woman that would be interested in both of them.

"I don't suppose there's a chance he's really your son?" Ralena asked, both hopeful and dreading the possibility.

There was a bitter chuckle, "If there was, I could have leveraged my right as his father to prevent the experiment." He took in her haunted expression. "I wouldn't dwell on it." Vincent said after a while. "It doesn't change anything about the man you knew."

While Ralena sat back to think on that, Cloud looked away. That fact didn't change the past, but as far as he was concerned, it certainly explained a lot.

***

"How are you today?" Sephiroth asked a second time, once the girl had gotten over the initial surprise of him actually coming to visit. At their first meeting nearly a week ago he said he would, but she clearly hadn't expected him to follow though. He felt surprised as well when he opened the door and that confused him. Emotionally, Sephiroth always had an even keel, he understood that this was not normal, but it did not bother him. He had grown up without being taught things like empathy and sympathy, so the fact that he felt things in the presence of this girl was intriguing. It was a puzzle. He would pay attention to these foreign emotions and the girl to see if it supported his hypothesis.

"Good," Ralena smiled, "I had physical training today."

"P.T.? Really?" That was something he found curious.

She nodded, "They want me to stay healthy." Then she leaned forward seriously, "Some of the staff should join me."

He chuckled, "They would benefit from it." He looked around the room she had, it wasn't large and sparsely furnished. A bed, a fair sized desk, a treadmill and a book shelf. There was one other door that he assumed was the bathroom. A puzzles was on her desk, a 3d piece in progress. Without knowing what it was supposed to look like he couldn't tell if it was going well or not. He frowned at her clock, which was a panel in the wall. It didn't show the proper time, just a countdown to when it would go off, waking her at 0800 if his calculations were correct.

The only thing that was really out of place was sitting atop the top shelf. A blue chocobo plush doll. It was old, but well cared for. She caught him looking at it. "Iris keeps them from seeing me," she explained. Sephiroth stepped forward and now noticed the camera it sat in front of, the red indicator light was not on. He raised a brow at her. "We have an understanding, I won't block the camera most of the time and they won't hide others where they think I can't find them."

"I'm surprised that worked."

"After I broke the fourth one, one of the staff was asked to handle it and came to talk to me. Apparently The Doctor blames puberty for my disobedience."

He scanned the room again, now for signs of hidden cameras, it wasn't like there was much to hide it behind, and if this was the only room she lived in, she surely knew when anyone had moved anything in it. "Have they tried to hide any since then?"

She shrugged, "Occasionally, I think they do it now as a test to see how long it takes me to notice." He felt a bit of smug satisfaction, and again he was sure it was not from himself. It may have been confirmation bias, but he thought like it was coming from one side of him. "Last time it was imbedded in the wall," She continued over his thoughts, "but I saw the patch job."

Clearly, they hadn't gotten a professional to do the job. Looking down from the top of the shelf, he eyed the spines of some of the books there. "Books on Symptoms and Anatomy?"

"The staff prefer that I use the proper terms when describing my condition," she stated plainly.

"And the Physical Therapy books?"

"For treating my own soreness and minor injuries, I have to keep a log."

"Of course," he said slowly, looking back to the shelf. "You have an interesting library…"

"It is what they give me, they test my intelligence at regular intervals." She sounded a little annoyed at this fact.

"I see there's no fiction…" he mused out loud.

"Fiction?" she said the word like she felt she should know it, but didn't.

He felt confusion, possibly hers; and concern, that was his own. He turned back to her, "Made up stories," he clarified.

"The doctor won't allow it," she pouted, he felt annoyed disappointment, "He calls it 'frivolous drivel' that is of no scientific concern."

"-hmph-, that sounds like him."

The girl suddenly went still, staring at him with wide glowing green eyes. He felt like alarms bells were going off. Sudden suspicion and fear brushed against his mind. The first he was very familiar with, the latter he had left behind years ago. That sensation unnerved him.

When she spoke next there was a tinge of fear to her voice. "Y… you know The Doctor?"

"He's in charge of my group's medical treatments." The man was very specifically in charge of _his_ medical treatments, all of them.

"Oh…" her voice was quiet and disappointed. He didn't have to guess, he could feel it.

"What is it?"

"I… I didn't think someone as nice as you would know him."

He withheld a laugh at the idea of anyone calling him '_nice_'. "Yes, well, a lot of people either don't know or don't agree with what he does. Unfortunately, he has too much power and influence for much to be done about it…"

She took a minute to think about these words. She knew the meanings of "power" and "influence" but had never heard them used in a social context. Eventually she asked, "Can we talk about something else? I do not like to think about him if I don't have too."

A soft chuckle escaped his lips, "Neither do I."

***

The next day found the four members of Avalanche lying flat atop a small cliff overlooking the remains of the Nibelheim reactor. The destruction wasn't as complete as the reactor in Gongaga. Maybe that was just because this one was bigger. A large hole was obvious in the structure, and some parts adjacent to that were falling over, but a decent portion of the building was still intact… well as intact as the poorly maintained building was to begin with.

ShinRa agents were scattered about, hustling around and taking orders from either Elena, Rude or an S-1 SOLDIER. "Looks like they don't know what's going on either," Cloud said, handing the binoculars over to Tifa.

After several seconds looking through his detached sniper scope, Vincent responded, "I'm inclined to agree."

"Yeah, but what are we going to do?" Ralena asked, "They're all over it like ants at a picnic. We can't get close."

"Yeah," Tifa added, "And we can't move around after dark, the monsters will be more active."

Cloud slowly exhaled, "If the Turks are in charge of the investigation, Cait Sith probably won't hear anything about it. Let's camp here another night, and maybe tomorrow. If they finish up, we can check it out."

"I doubt it," Vincent shook his head, "Something like this could easily take a week to investigate at least, but we may get a look if they bring any wreckage out."

"Maybe…" the blonde responded doubtfully.

"Would we even know what we are looking at?" Tifa asked, "I mean, it's all just a bunch of pipes and valves to me."

"I'm certain that if anything notable comes of it, we will know it when we see it." Vincent passed his scope over to Ralena, so that she could look. Photos would have been nice to get. Then they could show Cid or Cait Sith later for identification. For that they would have needed a camera with a telephoto lens, but those were expensive and difficult to get outside of a big city.

"What about what we already missed?" Ralena asked, "It took us four days to get here after we heard and they got a chopper."

Cloud shook his head, "I doubt they have that much of a head start. The nearest place that would have one of those ready to fly would be the Del Sol Base. Unless the Turks were just waiting by the beach for something to happen, they'd have to travel there too. Those transport choppers aren't the fastest either…"

Vincent thought a moment, "An inspection and recovery crew like this probably takes a day to get together. Perhaps a day and a half for travel… It's possible they have only been here since this morning."

***

"Anything yet?" Elena asked, as the lead engineer came out of the remains of the building.

"Nothing for certain yet ma'am. This reactor has been on minimal maintenance schedule for a while now. We're still not sure _where_ the failure happened. Until we figure that out we can't tell if it was sabotage or not."

"The footprints we found outside suggest it," Kunsel said. When they had arrived for preliminary scouting, Church, one of the S-3's, noticed the tracks and said that there was a lot of movement in and out.

"That may be true," the engineer said, "But we still have to figure out _how_ it exploded first…" He turned to Rude, "Are you sure we can't consult Director Tuesti on this one?"

"Positive," Rude answered quickly.

"Why would you want to talk to him?" Elena asked.

"Given the age of this reactor, it's probably one of the ones he helped design. His input would be valuable."

Rude shook his head, "The director is not to be bothered with any details about this investigation. He has a number of other responsibilities he needs to attend to and the president doesn't want him distracted. Understood?"

The man looked unhappy about it, but nodded then sighed. "I have a few ideas, I just need to take some time to discuss with my team, while we continue looking for the evidence."

"Please do that," Elena said, "As quick as you can while still being thorough and safe. I don't want anyone hurt."

The woman got a strange look from both Rude and the engineer. It was not a common thing to hear in the ShinRa when you were being commanded by someone who you didn't work with regularly, and even less expected from a Turk. Kunsel made no reaction, it was the same kind of thing he often said to his own men, and he knew where her concern stemmed from. After all, there was a lab nearby if someone was injured…

"Of course ma'am." The engineer said, before walking back to his own men.

"I'm gonna take the grunts around for another patrol of the perimeter," Kunsel said. "Not much has come back since the explosion, but animals and monsters can be pretty unpredictable." He received a nod of acknowledgement then left the two suits to discuss amongst themselves.

"Why isn't Reno here?" Elena asked after she and Rude were alone. "I thought you were both coming."

"He was going to be, he said he wanted to follow up with you about something."

A shadow went over the blondes face and she looked away, "Later," she said quietly, "When we don't have to worry about eavesdropping." Rude looked at the young woman and could see a bit of his younger self. She had found something that shook her conviction. Every Turk had at least one of those moments in their career, just usually not so early. "But really," she asked, trying to mask her change in mood, "What happened to Reno?"

"Another task came up."

"Ah," she said with a grin, "Did you lose the coin toss?"

Rude shook his head, "He did."

***

Reno wanted to pull his hair out.

First the Nibelheim Reactor, and now this…

He was at Icicle Inn again. This time he was asking to locals about the last time they saw ShinRa troops from the base they set up outside of the crater. The town was the only place for them to get extra supplies. The company had been making sure the ShinRa warehouse on the edge of Icicle Inn was well stocked with the provisions they needed. They couldn't depend on the locals to provide enough for several hundred troops and SOLDIERs. At this point the base had more people in it than the town, and there wasn't a whole lot they could farm in the snow.

The last radio contact with the crater base roughly twelve hours after the Nibelheim reactor exploded. Reno had been prepping to go investigate the reactor with Rude when the order came down from Heidegger for one of them to go check on the battalion instead.

After he and Rude arrived at Costa Del Sol, Reno had lost at Rock, Paper, Scissors and got re-routed to Icicle Inn. He had been looking forward to a little time for the three of them to reconnect, and see how the rookie was doing.

The few troops posted at Icicle Inn to maintain the warehouse, and be kept out of trouble, didn’t seem concerned. They reported that they had not seen any of those "warm blooded babies" for several days, and by now were only two days overdue for their weekly supply run. They mentioned it in a report, but chalked it up to the weather, both for radio interference and them probably not being able to travel through it.

"No offense sir," one of them said, "But they just haven't had time to adjust to the conditions around here. We give them pointers each time they come 'round, but you know how some guys are. They just wanna figure it out for themselves, like our experience means jack shit."

The Turk sighed, so the reason he was freezing his balls off was because Heidegger was overacting. Fantastic. "Ok," Reno replied, "So weather being the bitch that it is, when do we need to start worrying? It is around 300 men we are talking about." If he didn't give the Heidegger a proper report Reno knew he would just be sent back.

"Well they should have at least a week's worth of extra supplies, and the weather is supposed to clear up after tomorrow.."

"So if they're not at least calling in by when… tomorrow, after the weather passes?"

"Hard to say, sir." The lieutenant said, "If their radio tower is iced over they won't be able to send out a signal until that's taken care of. That can take the better part of a day in clear weather."

Reno pinched the bridge of his nose. There were a lot of good reasons why the battalion would be out of contact, and logical reasons why contact could be delayed for another few days. He knew that if he left it at that he would feel that he had not done his due diligence. He would see about staying another two days, one for the weather, and another for the radio tower or someone coming by in person. If they didn't hear anything by then, Reno would escalate the situation.

***

He found himself walking the halls of a large house, looking for something. After a minute he realized it was not the manor. Older, more ornate architecture, cob webs and deep red carpeting… the Ghost Hotel. He was in the Gold Saucer's Ghost Hotel, if it had been more realistic.

Lightning flashed and he saw shadows on the walls for things that were not present. It took a few flashes for him to recognize the shapes of Ulster and Talos. He saw the shape of the Hellmasker as well, undoubtedly the orchestrator of this particular dream. It was certainly turning out to have… theatrical tastes.

He walked through a door into the prison corridor in ShinRa tower, though the red carpeting remained. There was a flickering form in the corner, then on the stairs, always out of the corner of his eye, a figure in white. At first he thought it was Hojo in his lab coat. A little fear rose in him, he didn't know where this would lead. In his mental landscape Hojo was an indicator of _pain_ and little else. 

There was another flash of lightning and he was back in the hotel hallways. Vincent did not care if he was in his own head, he did his best not to show outward signs of apprehension. He caught the sound of a giggle and the shadow of a woman, he looked towards a corner and just caught sight of a pink bow disappearing around it.

_Aerith? _

Waking memory came back to him in a rush and his fear abated. Turning, he found a ghostly pale version of a Ralena, smirking at him. She wore a white dress and veil, blood had dripped down from a nasty gash in her neck. "Walk with me?" she asked, clearly not at all concerned with the injury. He fell into step beside her as she walked passed him. "It seems like Ulster and Talos are settling in, well." There was a subtle, static-like sound that accompanied her voice.

"Yes…" he said slowly.

"How is your newest roommate doing?"

"Making himself at home," Vincent replied dryly. He looked out several tall windows as they walked down an exterior hall. Through them he saw rolling plains beneath the thunder clouds. That was what he heard under her voice when she spoke. Wind blowing through tall grass, her favorite sound…

They continued down the hall, passing a few paintings. One of Lucretia, a damaged one of Hojo, and another of Sephiroth with two other SOLDIER's whose features he could not make out, only that one wore a red coat.

Ralena frowned as they stopped in front of a large door, the style of it matched the house, but it was made of metal instead of wood. The door creaked open on its own, Vincent looked in and found Cid in a sinister looking engine room. Most of the gears were exposed, all of them were of the pointy variety and there were a lot of chains hanging around for no good reason. The room either had lots of rust, or dried blood splatter about it.

"Hey, Vincent, come on in!" Cid said, in his usual manner. There was a work table between them, from which the pilot grabbed a screwdriver and turned to the bench against the wall. From his position by the door, Vincent could not see what the man was working on.

He turned to see if Ralena would be coming in as well, but she was gone. He did, however, catch sight of Aerith's trailing shadow. He felt like she was following along to eavesdrop, but did not want to participate.

With the redhead gone, Vincent walked into the room and stood opposite Cid from the worktable.

"Could you lend me a hand?" the pilot asked, turning around, "Thanks."

Before he knew it, Cid held Vincent's gauntleted left arm in his hands. There was no pain, but when he looked down he saw a bloody stump below the elbow.

He did not share the Hellmasker's sense of humor.

Neither did his dream version of Aerith apparently. He saw her peeking through the doorway, then blanch and turn to leave, like someone leaving a horror movie they couldn't handle. He noticed her touch something on the way out. He squinted in her direction, but was quickly distracted by the events around him.

"All done," Cid declared, turning around, a nasty version of the gauntlet in his hands, with foot long fingers sharpened into blades.

"What am I supposed to do with this?" Vincent asked, as he found himself wearing it. He moved his hand in front of his face, and watched the blades with a strange fascination.

The captain shrugged, "I dunno, gut something? Why not give it a try?" He gestured behind Vincent and he turned.

The Hellmasker stood there, Holding Hojo up by a noose like some kind of torturer's party favor. Despite the rope around his neck, the man was clearly alive and Vincent found his mouth splitting into a nasty grin…

Vincent shuddered as he awoke. He didn't like the idea of _enjoying_ doing those things, even to Hojo. Normally it was Chaos that gave him such visions, but with the Hellmasker now being effectively "awake" he had as much free reign as the others to shape his dreams. Unfortunately, it seemed that one had a sick sense of humor and was more creative than the other two.

He picked up his phone to check the time, nearly 0500. At least this time he got to sleep in, normally it was closer to three when his dreams woke him. He sighed and pulled himself out of bed, it was another mission day, so he may as well get ready.

***

Vincent was exhausted, the Hellmasker came out twice today. Unlike the other two, it was eager to emerge and wreak havoc on the monster population and seemed to be harder to hold back when he hit his limit. It loved to tear into creatures with its chainsaw and watch the blood fly. The dreams it had given him were overdramatic with a sense of the macabre. For all this, Vincent named the Hellmasker after the now-dated horror movies of his era, Slasher.

On top of that, Cloud, Nanaki and himself had almost made it back out of the desert when a dust storm had kicked up. They had returned with enough sand and dust covering them to start a beach on the deck. They tried to shake out what they could before going inside, but that could only get one so far. Nanaki had stayed on deck to shake off more and Cloud had gone to check in with Cid, for once Vincent had decided to see to his own comfort first and went straight to get a change of clothes and a shower.

Placing his laundry day clothes from the goth shop in an empty locker he dropped his dirty cloak on the end of the bench and sighed. His jacket and shirt joined the cloak, he was happy to find most of his lean, muscled body free of the sand. But he was certain that what was shed from his hair would quickly change that. His hair would likely hold as much sand as his clothes and he was not looking forward to the number of washes he would have to go through before he was free of it.

After removing the rest of his clothes he wrapped a towel around his waist, and grabbed a smaller one to cover his left hand before entering the showers.

As he opened the door, steam struck him in the face. He must have been deep in thought to not even acknowledge the sound of the water running. No… it was already off in this room. But he could hear water running through the above 'private' shower. Everyone had agreed that one would be allocated to the women for modesty's sake. He turned to see who was already there.

The walls in the Highwind were all outfitted with handholds or railings of a sort, in the case of an emergency it was always good to have something to hold onto. The crew showers were no exception, were it not for that consideration it probably wouldn't even have stalls. That being said, in a utilitarian move, the "walls" were just railings and they could only be called stalls because they divided the space. Not because they offered any privacy.

Therefore with the settling steam it wasn't hard for Vincent to spot the room's only other occupant. They had a towel atop their head, drying their hair, a second towel was on the railing nearby. His eyes trailing down for identifying features, he saw a pair of narrow shoulders and began to get increasingly uncomfortable as he realized that the slim waist was not that of a male. Four pale scars along the waist facing him told him it was not Tifa or Yuffie, whose midriffs exposed unmarred skin. He was about to make a quick, and silent retreat when the self-closing door clicked shut behind him.

"Sorry," she said, apparently unconcered with another person being in the room, "I'll be done in a minute."

At the sound of her voice he realized his breath had caught in his throat. "I'll wait outside," he said, retreating back through the door before she could respond.

Back out in the locker room Vincent found Cloud, coated in the dust and sand that couldn't be shaken off. The blonde took in Vincent's obviously unwashed appearance and sighed, "Don't tell me all of the stalls are taken…"

Vincent shook his head slightly, "Just one."

"Oh, good." Assuming that the gunman just came back out to get something he had forgotten, the blonde finished removing his boots.

Vincent found himself temporarily unable to report on the situation, as the other man removed his paldrons, then started on his suspenders and shirt. "I would wait a moment," the gunman said eventually.

Cloud pulled his head out from the bottom of his shirt and looked at him confused, "Why should I-"

The door from the showers opened and revealed Ralena, a towel wrapped around her waist with another one draped over her shoulders, covering her chest. "Sorry about that," she said, tucking a few wet tendrils of hair away. "I didn't think you guys would be back so soon and I didn't want to wait for Tifa and Yuffie to finish their turns."

Cloud blinked at the redhead and looked back and forth between her and Vincent, careful to try and keep his gaze above the shoulders. "Yeeaaah…" the blonde said slowly and awkwardly, "No problem."

"I'll just grab my clothes and-" She stopped for a second and their eyes went to where she was looking at the bench with the pile of Vincent's clothes on it.

Vincent winced, he hadn't been paying attention and dropped his dust covered clothing right on top of her clean ones. He helped her dig them out so that she didn't get sand on herself while an amused Cloud looked on, averting his eyes on occasion. It was a rare sight that the former Turk was the uncomfortable one in any scenario. Cloud wondered if the hazel-eyed woman wasn't picking up on it, or if she was just trying to downplay the whole thing. "Sorry," Vincent said, quietly.

"It's ok," she smiled, "I have more back at my bunk." She bundled her now dusty clothes in the towel that had been around her shoulders in order to keep herself clean. She held the bundle across her chest with one arm, nodded a farewell to them and walked out into the hall wearing a towel that barely covered enough to be considered PG. It would only take a stray hook or a careless gesture to change that. They spotted one of the younger crewman watch her exit, wide-eyed as the door shut behind her.

"She told me she sometimes forgets how people feel about the 'little things'," Vincent said in a carefully neutral voice. The metallic crash of a dropped toolbox came from the hall, "...like nudity."

With their slightly enhanced hearing they heard her voice through the door. "Do you need a hand with that? I can help."

"No... no, Miss Ralena! I got it."

"Maybe we should consider getting bigger towels," Cloud said dumbly after a few seconds.

***

"Then Cid said if we were airborne I could've crashed the ship," Ralena pouted, " I mean, what's the big deal? I was covered. You're lucky, you don't get yelled at for forgetting clothes."

The large feline chuffed out a laugh, "I am also not a young healthy human female among a number of young human males."

"You have a point...," she muttered, pausing to pull some hair out of the brush. Roughly half of the crew was under twenty five.

"I also refuse to bathe myself in water." He grinned, "Thank you, by the way."

She smiled back and ran the brush down his flank again, taking more dust and sand with it. "You're welcome, Nanaki."

"Are you sure you are not getting too dusty?"

She grinned back, "If I do, I'll just take another shower and crash the ship." She thought about when she had entered the changing room, it was the first time she really got a good look at Vincent's bare, scarred chest. He was slim, but with more muscle then his clothing would suggest. His state of undress on its own did not really bother her, but when he was helping her gather her things she did find herself watching his muscles move, trying to pinpoint what about his movements was so mesmerizing. She made a quick exit hoping that she would not accidently project the feelings that were starting to emerge and embarrass herself.

***

"_Do you remember who you were?_"

What was that?

"_Do you remember taking me to see the stars, and the sunrise?_"

The voice was strange and wistful, like someone thinking aloud and not talking to anyone. He reached out his senses and swept the landscape of Lifestream around him, trying to find the source of it.

"_They weren't real, but that was ok. I hadn't seen them for so long._"

There, a little point, a beacon of some kind. He reached for it and almost "dropped" it as the image of green Mako eyes and short red hair consumed his vision.

"_Do you remember your friends? Genesis and Angeal and Zack?_"

More images came to mind, men he had called friends and comrades. Two of which died as his enemies, one downed by his own hand. He crushed the beacon, and it dissolved back into energies around him. A whisper still sounded, this one he could not understand. If his spirit had a form, he would have sneered.

A relay.

It was _her._ He was certain it was her. That woman who seemed to be the last living being to remember Sephiroth as a human being. That creature who stank like a Cetra but was not one.

The beacon and the relay were probably not her doing. She was a clueless child. It was the Cetra's doing, he could smell her stink all over it. He reached out and snuffed the next nearest relay. Now there was a only a slight static sound, that soon faded. Without the signal, he could not find the next one, he would not have left the safety of his body for it regardless.

More interference, more attacks on his mind, his spirit. It was a laughable attempt at psychological warfare, but then again the Cetra didn't seem to have anything else to attack with.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I realized that I have been using Yuffie and Cid a lot, mostly because I think they are the most likely to make peanut gallery comments. In any group conversation scene I tend to think out the dialogue first, with a few specific people in mind then, decide who says the other stuff. I feel like the character I have least represented at this point is Barret, but I can't really get a handle on him outside of very specific scenarios


	26. Her

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Awakening; Home Again; Attacking Conviction; Waterfalls; Invader's Memories; The First Time; Bartender on Deck; Less Human; Made in Midgar

Another wound opened up. As bright and painful as the last. Her lifeblood poured out into the sky and flesh tore open. For a long time this wound had been capped off with some sort of device built by her misguided children. She had been numb there for so long that the pain was shocking.

The virus that had lain dormant within stone for so long had finally corrupted one so fully that Gaea could not take the child back. Not as long as he clung so desperately to the land of the living, not as long as his desire to alter everything and become something else was so strong.

Now the calamity was beginning to spread again.

Her stalker was gone, trapped somewhere sleeping. Out of reach and unable to hunt the Calamity on her behalf. There were too many dangers now to be ignored.

It was time to use fire. With the stalker gone, the rabid animals that she had created would have to do the work. There was only one voice, one child that had returned to her that begged her to hold off. To not resort to this. But she could wait no longer, the infection burned at its point of origin, and she could smell faint shades of it where her skin had gone dead years ago. There was also the seed of doom constantly moving across her surface like a traveling itch.

No, she could stand it no longer, many more of her children would return to her before this was over, but better some than all.

***

The chamber shook and the materia walls cracked. A layered barrier appeared around the suspended crystal that held the nearly regenerated body of Sephiroth and the Jenova-celled copy that was slowly warping to represent the original creature.

The walls burst open and a violent gust of Lifestream shot into the air. Several massive beasts the size of buildings escaped their age old prisons and scattered across the world.

Sephiroth smiled, _finally_.

Now he could move his entire operation back into the crater. When he had taken over the ShinRa base it was partly out of necessity. Whenever he had moved to spread the new Jenova cells the chamber had rumbled, and he couldn't risk the weapons coming for him in the crater itself.

When everything calmed down, the small barrier went down. Energy he had been using strictly to keep Holy dormant moved upward and outward, forming a new, larger barrier the covered the entirety of the crater. The barrier wasn't only to keep things out physically. It would also operate as a mute. It would keep the weapons from detecting his activities and prevent Holy from activating. The knowledge he had gleaned from the ancients helped him hold it at bay. It would not move unless it detected a threat.

Holy was blinded, the Weapons could not detect him, and the humans would not be able to break down his barrier. Now he had all the time and freedom he needed to prepare his forces for the plans he had made.

****

The first that Avalanche heard about the Weapons was when the planet cried out with a voice that several of the members heard. For some of them it was drowned out by a screaming empath. By the time Ralena was taken to the med bay and taken something for the headache, Nanaki had gotten a call from his grandfather in Cosmo Canyon. Bugenhagen told him of the streaks of light he had seen originating from the north with the shapes of creatures within them. 

About an hour later, when Cait Sith was able to join them, they all gathered in the conference room to discuss this turn of events. Cait Sith shook his head in disbelief, "Reports are coming in that some kind of barrier has covered the crater."

"The _whole thing_?" Yuffie asked, overwhelmed by the prospect of magic at that scale.

Cait Sit nodded, "This happens to be about the same time that another remote reactor exploded."

Barret glared suspiciously at the robot, "I thought you didn't have access to that kinda information…"

"I'm a _spy_," Cait Sith replied, rolling his eyes. "Did you forget?"

"Do you think this really has anything to do with the reactor explosions?" Tifa asked.

"I don't know for sure, the Boss is keeping me out of the loop right now." The cat shrugged, "Even though a reactor explosion is something I _should_ be able to comment on." He muttered sourly, "I have been able to figure out that ShinRa _thinks_ it's Sephiroth's people"

Cloud leaned forward concerned, "Sephiroth has people now?"

"Well, I use the term loosely."

"But how?" Yuffie asked, "We saw all of his copies dying in the crater. He has no more agents."

Vincent spoke up from his usual spot against the wall, "Do we know that for sure? It's been over a month."

"What about just a failure in the machinery? Could that be causing the reactors to go?" Tifa didn't want to sound too happy at the idea. Afterall, part of their mission as Avalanche was getting rid of the reactors.

"It not the engineering," Cait Sith said, almost defensively, "Not with_ two_ reactors going up this close to each other, besides, there are other rumors."

"What kind of rumors?"

After some more discussion, it was agreed that a fact finding mission was in order. Aside from securing the others a discrete way into the city, Cait Sith would do his own work as his normal self… whoever that was.

In the end it was decided that Vincent, Cloud and Tifa would scout different parts of Midgar, while Yuffie, Ralena and Cid went to Kalm. Shedding his distinctive clothes and putting in colored contacts allowed Vincent to blend in. He, Cid, Tifa and Yuffie were the least conspicuous in appearance when they changed clothes. As part of his recon, Vincent found himself walking the outer edges of the Sector 2 slums. The whole area was strange for him to see, both familiar and not at the same time.

Then again, the last time he was here it actually had a name.

Hugin, had once been an upper class town a few miles from the growing city of Midgar and hosted a small college where his father had worked before taking the job with the ShinRa.

The streets were almost the same, but the neighborhood was not. Many of the large houses were still here, they had been built to last after all, but all of them had long since been converted into something else. Most were now apartments, some had shops on the first floor, one was now a brothel and he imagined how angry the uppity couple who used to live there would be about it. Other, shabby buildings had also been crammed in between the houses on what was once the larger yards. There were no yards anymore either, it was either lifeless dirt or paved over.

He looked up at the plate above him and frowned. Rain would never fall on these streets again, never clean off the accumulated waste that scattered before his feet. The rain would merely drain off the plate above and be collected for usage elsewhere. Did people below the plate even know what rain really sounded like, felt like?

No wonder Barret had wanted to blow up the damn place.

He stopped when he realized that his feet had been to taking him down a familiar path, toward what had once been home.

No, not home, anymore. Merely the building he grew up in. He scowled, it might not even be the same building anymore. He hadn't been there in close to thirty years. Two streets down, past the park and one more street over.

His eyes narrowed and he turned around, he didn't have time for this kind of useless sentimentality. After his father died, Vincent and his grandmother were the only ones in the family left. There was no way that the old woman was still alive now. He felt something twist inside him at the thought of her alone and shoved it back down.

His past life was gone, it was a fact that he had already accepted. His home had been consumed by Midgar, his family was dead. His few friends from before likely were as well. The only artifact of his old life that remained was that bastard Hojo. After he put a bullet in the psychotic professor's head then his old life would exist in no one's mind but his own.

That he could live with...

***

Cloud had insisted on going into the city, and he knew his reasons were entirely selfish.

He went straight to the Sector 5 slums towards the church, his untamable hair hidden under a cap and glowing eyes masked behind sunglasses that were almost always unnecessary beneath the plate. Like the others, he wore plain clothes they had purchased elsewhere. Jeans, t-shirt, a sweater, sneakers, some of it layered in case they needed to strip them off to get lost in the crowd.

When he paused briefly at the nearby playground he saw another figure walk into the church. He gritted his teeth at the sight of the redheaded Turk entering the building, a bag in hand. More quietly than before, he continued his approach and moved by one of the broken windows. What the hell was that son of a bitch doing here?

"Boo!" he heard the Turk say, followed by the shrieks of startled children.

"That's not funny Mr. Reno!" said a young male voice.

"Is too," the man replied. "How goes the gardening?"

"See for yourself," said a girl proudly, she sounded a little older than the boy.

"They look better now…" he said a little sadly.

"I told you we could handle the job!" the boy said.

"You sure did, are you kids willing to keep this up? I'll pay you the same every week."

The girl sounded unsure, "Won't the flower lady be mad at us?"

Cloud moved and risked a look in the window. Reno's back was to him and he was looking down at the ground. Two children were standing in front of him, siblings by the look of them. "I don't think she'll be back. But some of us don't want this place to go away. If you don't wanna do it you can tell some other kids and they can take over."

"No! We'll keep doing it."

"Heh, that's what I thought." He sat down on one of the pews and Cloud heard a plastic bag get put down. "Now get over here, I brought sandwiches."

"Really!?" the girl sounded excited.

"Is there meat in it this time too?" the boy asked.

"-Tch- of course!" Reno scoffed, "What kind of sandwich would be it otherwise?"

Begrudgingly, Cloud moved away from the building. The Turk would likely be there a while, so he may as well scout more of the area and come back later. At least someone was taking care of the flowers…

***

"Why did you pair up with _me_ again?" Cid asked the redhead walking beside him.

"Because, despite how insulting you are, if I have a panic attack you are way calmer than Yuffie." Ralena had been uncomfortable at the idea of going into Kalm, but Cloud was adamant. Since they picked her and Nanaki up outside of the Gold Saucer she had rarely gone anywhere more densely populated than the Highwind itself. What if they needed her skillset in a city? What if they _had_ to go into Midgar later? Cloud wanted to know if she could handle herself.

"I would just tell you to calm the hell down."

"Surprisingly, I think that would help," Ralena deadpanned. As they walked down the street she tried to get the pulse of the population. As far as she could tell there was a little bit of tension among the people, the people here knew something was happening out there, but the problem just seemed far away.

"I know what would keep you distracted," Cid said.

The empath rolled her eyes, "We are _not_ going towel shopping." It would keep her too annoyed to lose herself in the sea of emotions she was trying to swim through, but it would hardly help them get information.

He laughed, "I was gonna suggest a beer and some good, hot food."

"I see…" Ralena grinned, "you just want to eat something that has been raised on a farm for a change."

"Buckman is working wonders," Cid admitted, "but that monster-meat is lean and sometimes has my digits tingling. I'm afraid I'm going to grow a tail or something. I want normal meat, with more fat in it."

"-Tch- Shera would be _so_ happy to hear that."

"Goddammit," Cid cursed, "Is she turning you into another mother hen now too?"

Ralena turned away and looked across the street, muttering under her breath, "I don't think it's your mother she wants to be."

"What'd ya say?"

"Does that look like a good place for lunch?" She said, quickly changing the subject, "A bar is better to hear about rumors right?"

***

In the end, the trip into Midgar yielded a few things. The pulse on how the populous was handling things was one, which was varying levels of OK to panicked. On the upper plates of Midgar, where the ShinRa propaganda machine was strongest, the people seemed mostly unconcerned. Word was that the ShinRa military was aware and prepared for the threat, because apparently giant, building sized monsters were a thing people would believe that the military had a plan for.

The reactor explosions had been reported as the work of a new insurgent group. This was not intended to bring any good publicity to Avalanche who were not even mentioned. After all, the leaders of Avalanche were officially still in a ShinRa prison facility somewhere. When he heard this, Barret was almost insulted that Avalanche had, effectively been swept under the rug as far as the populous was concerned. In general this was a good sign, while the Sector 7 incident was still raw, Avalanche was yesterday's news which gave them a little more leeway when it came to visiting the larger towns.

Lastly, there were the rumors. Oh, Gaea the rumors. Everything from conspiracy theories to religious rhetoric. Several rumors thought these enemies, whatever they were, had been kidnapping people from the slums for years. One with a lot of traction revolved around the return of the same group of one winged troops that attacked the tower just over five years ago. Another said the Weapons were a sign of the end of days for the sins of man. Still another claimed that alien sleeper agents had been "among us all along." If the current circumstances were not so dire, it would have been amusing that most of them had a fragment of truth. When one considered that many of them could, technically, fit into a single narrative Avalanche knew no one would believe it.

***

"_They sparkle like broken glass!_"

A flash of remorse came with those remembered words.

Realization struck him and Sephiroth wanted to laugh. Is that what the Cetra was doing? Was she attacking his _conviction_? Did she honestly think that having these memories restored would make _any_ difference? These memories were mere water drops on the bonfire of his will. When he had been in Nibelheim, he hadn't thought about these things. They were not important then. They were not important now. He had possessed these memories five years ago, if they had been enough it would have stopped him then.

Now that he knew the method, he could worry less about her silly little "attacks." Once he had the Black Materia the Cetra could do nothing to stop him.

_"How long has she been here?"_

_ "Years… She just wanted to see the stars."_

He sneered at the thought, at how weak he had been. How he had taken so long to free the Mako-eyes girl because he had lacked the agency to just cut his way out of ShinRa with her… No, he refused to believe it was his weakness that stopped him. She just hadn't been worth it.

She was nothing.

It wouldn’t matter much longer, his defenses were growing. The materia his troops were bringing him were being added to his arsenal. The knowledge he was gaining from them could be used to guard him from the Cetra's annoying little guerrilla strikes.

"_I thought you were against suffering._"

Even his own words would not faze him.

He rejected any materia that were not at least close to mastered. They were not powerful enough to do him any good, but his pawns could still use them. They needed to be strong enough for his plans, they could improve them on each other. Especially the few Time materia they had. Excessive use of the _Haste_ spell was normally discouraged, as it was believed to accelerate aging over time. He was not concerned about the long term effects of it on his forces. It helped the infectious cells he had in them grow and multiply, so that they could be passed on to other creatures in the crater.

Not all of the ShinRa troops at the base camp were compatible, some of them died from the forced change, but those bodies could still be used to culture more cells. He'd slowed down with the assimilation of the rest, he only had a limited number to work with.

****

Ralena hiked up the trail within easy view of the Highwind. They were parked and hidden over a lake nestled within a ring of mountains, waiting another day for Barret, Yuffie, and Nanaki to be picked up.

Her wilderness trained eyes had caught sight of a trail that led behind the waterfall which fed the lake. It didn't make sense for there to be a trail here. Experienced mountaineers like Tifa would have a difficult time getting here. Was someone or something stuck here? It was the only explanation for something coming down to the lake and back up behind the falls enough to form a trail.

She had told the bridge crew where she was going, and they maneuvered the Highwind slightly so that it was over a thicker portion of the lake shore and she had walked from there. The trail had little signs in the way activity, perhaps whoever had used it was long gone, it was also entirely possible that recent weather would have washed away any signs. Still, she was confident no one had used this path in at least a couple of days. It was steep, but soon she was moving behind the falls themselves. The overhang was significant, there was a good ten feet of air between her and the back side of the water, but if she spent any amount of time lingering here, the spray would still leave her soaked in minutes.

Spotting a cave that lead back, she drew her weapons before continuing, just in case she read the signs wrong and there was some monster lairing within. As she moved deeper in, she felt something was definitely here. This place had power, old, almost sleeping, but somehow also lacking a piece of itself. It reminded her of the Cetra outpost they had visited outside of Gongaga.

After a short distance, the tunnel opened up into a cave. The ground here was more flat and had an inch or two of water covering it. Crystals ringed the edges of the space, at the back was a raised platform and a large array of crystals that splayed out like a fan.

_"Soul wrought of terra corrupt, quelling impurity, _  
purging the stream to beckon forth an ultimate fate.  
Behold mighty Chaos, Ultimate destroyer."

Ralena steadied herself as multiple instances of the same woman in this room filled her sight. Praying, crying, entering and leaving. Her straight brown hair was tied up in a thick ribbon which wrapped around a long pony-tail.

"_Come on Doctor Val--tine!_"

_"Calm down, Doc--r, the fountain isn't going anyw--"_

"_I n-ver wanted to lose you."_

_"They didn't let me ho-d him… Not even once."_

"Sephiroth_…_"

Ralena froze at hearing the name. Suddenly remembering why that voice was familiar. She had heard it in echoes at the ShinRa Manor. "Lucrecia," she whispered.

One of the visions turned in her direction and spoke, "Do I know you?"

Surprised at the realization that one of the images was flesh and blood, the redhead shook off the phantoms. Ralena stared at the woman, for several seconds she did not know what to say. Lucrecia was sitting on the platform in front of the crystal on her knees.

"I... I'm sorry. I- What are you doing here?" the redhead asked.

"I do not deserve to live in the world out there." At this declaration, there was no sadness from Lucretia, just resignation and self-loathing.

"Umm... I." Ralena couldn't wrap her mind around what was before her. The crystals glowed slightly and she couldn't completely shut off her abilities. She could only think to retreat so she could get her thoughts together. "There's someone I need to bring to talk to you. I'll… be right back."

As she walked out of the tunnel and behind the falls, she found herself taking rapid panting breaths and tried to remain standing. When the sound of the water consumed her ears she relented and kneeled on the wet ground and put her hands on the wet stone ground. She was gasping for breath as her eyes burned with the threat of tears.

Was… was she having a panic attack?

She had not had one of those since she went to Midgar with Ma. How could she be having a panic attack over a woman in a cave?

Because… this was not just any woman, it was Lucrecia. This was Vincent's former lover, the woman he loved, the reason he ended up in a box. She was alive, and she was here, looking young and healthy.

Taking long deep breaths, she eventually got her breathing under control. She would tell Vincent in a minute, once she got up the courage.

Ralena had known she was romantically interested in Vincent, but with everything going on she didn't feel like it was the time to explore it. They were trying to save the world, and while he was certainly friendly he didn't seem to be interested in her. She hadn't been worried though, Vincent was so stoic and focused and they were so busy roaming around the globe that the idea of him falling for another woman wasn't even on her radar. But this was _Lucrecia_ and now the idea of losing him without ever telling him how she felt was sending her into a downward spiral.

If she was having this reaction to just knowing his ex was around, maybe the way she felt couldn't be defined with the word _like_, maybe... maybe she-

She shook herself out of it. Her feelings weren't important right now. Right now they were friends and as a _friend_, as someone who cared about him at all, she couldn't keep this from him. Soaking wet she moved back out into the sunlight, she was glad she could use the spray of the waterfall as an excuse if she had cried at all. Stepping far enough down the trail so that the waterfall wasn't too loud, she pulled out her phone.

The ringing cut off and his level voice answered, "Hello."

"Hey, Vincent. It's me."

"I know," he said, it wasn't mean or sarcastic. Just a statement. "I can see you from the bridge."

She looked over at the Highwind, it had taken her a good twenty minutes to hike up here, but the straight line distance to the airship wasn't nearly so far. "Do you have eagle vision too?"

"No, binoculars."

She heard the humor in his voice and laughed at herself, it shouldn't be funny, but it helped with her mood anyway. "Look… I think you need to come down here and see this."

There was a pause, a kind that told her that he was confused. "The waterfall?"

Ralena shook her head, and swallowed, "There's a cave back there... There's someo-" her voice cut off without her permission. She took a deep breath and started again. "Trust me, _you_ need to see this."

"Is it dangerous? Should I bring anyone else?"

She shook her head out of habit, honestly not sure if he was still looking at her. "No, I think you would prefer this be kept private."

There was a pause, "Are you alright?" Something in her voice must have given it away.

"I'm fine," she said in a way that he had learned meant the opposite, "It... it turned the lights on as you would say. I'll be fine in a minute." She honestly hoped that would be the truth.

"Alright, I'll come right down."

***

Vincent joined Ralena roughly ten minutes later, not at all winded by the pace he must have taken to reach her in that time. As his long, graceful strides closed the distance between them he noticed her look away from him, clearly hiding her expression and avoiding eye contact. "Ralena," he started, concerned, "What is it?"

"I found a cave back there," she said, as though trying to gain momentum in her explanation. "She… she's in there."

"She?" he asked. Ralena turned to look at him, her face seemed pale and her expression was a strange mix of determination, reluctance and… pain? Who could make her look at him like that? "Lucrecia?" he asked in disbelief. She nodded mutely. "Are you certain?"

Again, she nodded.

He went still and looked behind her towards the path that led behind the waterfall. Cait Sith said he had never found a death certificate for Lucretia. Best he could figure was that she had just left. With no sign of her anywhere and Lucrecia's lack of wilderness skills, Vincent had continued to believe that she was dead. Now, Ralena had somehow stumbled on her in a cave so isolated he doubted anyone could get here without at least having a mountain chocobo.

He moved forward and then stopped one step past the redhead. Without looking back at her he asked, "Come with me?" His voice came out quiet and tight.

Her head snapped up in his direction, "What?"

"In case it is some illusion or trap. I'd rather not face it alone." Those two sentences were not directly related to each other. He knew he was asking a lot of her. He knew she felt more for him than she tried to let on. The same spark didn't come to her eyes when rejoining the others compared to when she would see him for the first time after days apart. He was not sure when he had realized what that spike of bright green meant something more. He had yet to decided what to do with that information. He knew he missed her too, he missed the days when it had been just the two of them. He cherished what little time they happened to find in each other's company alone. He was certain that those feelings were his own, but he hadn't allowed himself the luxury of looking to deeply into it. And now this…

"_The others couldn't reach me…"_

It wasn't fair.

_"Don't worry! I won't let him go._"

It wasn't fair that _she_ had found Lucrecia.

It wasn't fair that he ask her to follow him in there, but he felt the weight of the past holding his feet firmly to the ground. Now that he knew Lucrecia lived, he _had_ to see her. He had to know what had become of her. Only then could he decide the path he would take.

***

He followed Ralena down the tunnel. Water dripped off of the walls and the sounds of the falls became background static. Vincent knew that his usual attention to detail was currently absent. He just watched the stiff, reluctant movements of the redhead in front of him and could only imagine that he moved in much the same way.

Ralena stopped just inside the cave and refused to look at him as he came up on her position. It didn't take long for his attention to be torn from her.

The woman at the far end of the room stole his attention. Her hair style was undoubtedly the same. Vincent didn't know if he was on the edge of sanity or revelation. He was several steps into the shallow pool of water before he found his voice.

"Lucrecia… is it you?" The woman at the far end of the room turned at the question. As soon as they saw each other Vincent and Lucrecia stopped and stared. She hadn't aged a day and was the very image of how he last remembered seeing her. The slight wear and discoloration of her clothes seemed to be the only obvious sign.

"Vincent?" Confusion and surprise colored her beautiful brown eyes. Old emotions rose up within him and twisted in his chest. Without his asking, his body began to move forward, he wanted to touch her, to see if she was real. He wanted proof that something _good_ from his past life was still existing in this world. Brown eyes widened in alarm, "Stay back!"

He would never know if it was his proximity or her words that brought on the flash of light. It washed over him and the room. His vision swam as the cave shifted to the walls of ShinRa Manor and the feeling of his clothes was that of a tailored suit.

The lab, the library. A picnic under a tree. Gentle kisses and passionate embraces.

He walked into her lab, she wasn't there. He was about to leave when his eyes spotted the image of his father on one of the screens. Lucretia fleeing from him, hoping she would comeback. Days later seeing her with Hojo.

Confronting them about her baby and the experiment. Finding Lucretia on the floor, clutching her stomach. Arguing with Hojo, a bullet in his chest.

After that all he remembered was pain.

_This body is the punishment that's been given to me._

Vincent reeled and stumbled back as the onslaught of memories faded away. He had yet to truly move past those events. Staying ahead of the ShinRa was a chess game that had kept his mind occupied. He had been too busy to really dwell on them. Which was probably why he had an ungodly amount of contingency plans in case the ShinRa came upon the Highwind. At least one for every combination of Avalanche members that could be on the ship at the time.

A voice came from behind him. It sounded small, hurt and afraid. Like the sentence had been dragged out of its owner's throat. "I- I'll wait outside."

He instantly turned at the sound of Ralena's voice, barely catching sight of bright green eyes turning away as she quickly retreated. In the overwhelming nature of the moment, he had forgotten she was there. Again, Vincent felt rooted to the ground with indecision.

"She brought you here?"

He was still looking back at the entrance, where the redhead had disappeared. Vincent closed his eyes a moment then turned back around. There would be plenty of time to talk to Ralena later, it was a minor delay. One that he hoped he would not regret. "Yes… she's a friend."

"It's good that you have friends," she said softly, it did not have much emotion in it at all.

He still stared at her. His mind was flooded with questions, his body was remembering old pain and his emotions roiled in his chest. After several seconds, words solidified in his mind, "How are you here? How are you still alive?"

She turned her face down, sorrow was etched into every bit of her face and posture. "I wanted to die," she almost whispered, "But the Jenova inside of me wouldn't let that happen. So I disappeared instead." She almost looked like she wanted to cry, but had run out of tears years ago. "Hojo had taken you, I thought you were… and Sephiroth. My dear son… I, who has never held her child… I do not deserve to be called his mother."

"It wasn't your fault…"

There was a moment where she almost looked angry, but she quickly faded back into her previous state. "It was my fault. I was stupid, I let my emotions for you cloud my judgement when it came to my child. I didn't listen to your concerns because they came from you, because I thought your protests came from jealousy. Even though I felt it was wrong before the first procedure."

He felt he should say something about that. About how he could have pressed her more too, how he shouldn't have spoken to her alone, instead of in front of Hojo. She wasn't the only one who had made mistakes. "Is there anything I can do for you?"

She looked at him, for a moment it looked like her expression might have softened, like she was trying to smile. She gave up on pretending to be happy a long time ago. "Can you tell me of my son? I heard that he died five years ago, but physically, like me, I'm sure that he cannot die so easily."

Vincent's mind locked up for a second. Something about her made him think of her as a porcelain doll. It was in her body, how tired she was. It was in her voice, years of talking to no one. It was in her eyes, the way the dim light barely reflected in them. Her eyes were not dead, but there was a glint in them that was not unlike Hojo's, but of a different flavor. He remembered the voice of his old self from his dreams.

"_When you think about it, Lucy was a little crazy too._"

When he did not speak, Lucretia stood, grasping her hands in front of her heart. "I have dreamed of Sephiroth so often. I feel like he might be alive. Please, Vincent, tell me."

"Lucrecia…" He had to answer, but he didn't have to tell her the truth. He doubted she could handle it. Even if she did not believe him, it would be easy for her to believe that he did not know better. She never was good at reading people. "Sephiroth is dead."

He watched as her head dropped down and her lips formed a hard line. His heart twisted at the sight of her in pain. He could not get closer to her, he wanted to comfort her, to reach out and touch her. To attempt to brush away tears that should be falling.

He felt he had to give her something, some hope, some indication of the man he had been. "My friend knew him before that," he found himself saying. "To her, he was a friend." Brown eyes met his, and he earned a small, but grateful smile at his next words, "He saved that woman from Hojo."

***

Sometime later Vincent found the Ralena just outside the other end of the tunnel entrance, soaked from the spray coming off of the falls. She sat on the ground against the rock wall, knees up, with her arms resting on them. Her head was bowed down and the wetness of her hair made it look like red ribbons framing her face. Vincent was not worried about the water, his cloak was made for rainy weather and it was the least important thing right now. He knelt down in front of her. "Are you okay?" She asked, before he could do the same.

"... not sure. You?"

The emotions were still echoing through her. It was worse than the ShinRa Mansion. It was more intense, more focused, it was living emotions and they were _his_. His memories, his feelings… for another woman. She could not seem to let them go. She could not force them out.

_All I wanted was to see her smiling face._

She couldn't face him.

He had loved Lucrecia so much, spent so much time in her company every day. She had been part of his work, and he seemed to always think about her when he was alone.

"I wasn't ready for all of that." She said honestly, not moving to look at him, "I… I shouldn't have gone in with you." She did her best to keep her voice from cracking, but she pulled her knees in tighter to her chest.

_If she is happy, then I don't mind._

The pain rolled over her twice, his and then her own. It certainly didn't help that she only _just_ realized how strong her feelings for him were.

"It's alright." He said, just loud enough to be heard over the falling water. He had been about to apologize to her for bringing her along. He wanted to tell her how stupid he felt that he did not consider her abilities. But it looked like she felt at fault and he thought easing those concerns was more important.

"Is she coming?" She asked, raising her head a little, but not enough that he could see her face.

He shook his head, "No, I told her Sephiroth was dead. She's..."

"Fragile," the empath nodded. Another victim of Jenova whose mind was damaged. She swallowed hard, "Are you..."

When she didn't finish the question after several seconds, he prompted her. "Am I...?"

"Are… you staying?"

That surprised him, and he was shocked to realize that it hurt a little that she would think that he would leave. He wondered if this was what she felt when he asked her the same back at the farm months ago. "No." He said firmly, "But I will likely come back to talk to her again."

"Yeah," she said, looking back down, "That makes sense." Selfish as it was, she was not sure it mattered whether or not he stayed. Lucrecia still loved him, it was a strange broken kind of love, but who was she to talk? It didn't matter, before this she thought she could not compete against Lucrecia's ghost. How could she compete with the real thing? Broken or not.

Vincent watched her as she tried not to move. He was having trouble reading her emotional state, her body language was clearly distressed, but he couldn't figure out how much was because of the echoes of his own emotions. She refused to look at him, and he couldn't see her eyes. He had no way of knowing if what he was reading her right. She had felt it, probably as clearly as he had, of that he was certain. Had she _seen_ it, too?

He shouldn't have asked her to go with him. Right or wrong, why was he always making the choice that seemed to hurt her?

"Let's get back to the Highwind," he said standing and holding out his hand to her, "You're going to need some dry clothes if you don't want to get sick."

"Hasn't happened yet." She said blandly, taking his hand to stand, still refusing to look at him. They took a few steps and the warmth of his hand seemed more so when compared to the cold of her wet clothes. She swallowed the lump in her throat and pulled her hand away from his. She didn't see his concerned expression as he looked back at her. Walking down the path, she trailed behind and her hazel eyes didn't meet his again, even after they returned to the airship. 

***

"Well shit," Tifa muttered, pulling the binoculars away from her eyes.

"What happened?" Cid asked, coming up next to her, knowing full well who she had been spying on.

She passed him the binoculars, "Not sure, but it's not good. Check her body language."

Cid eyed the pair as they worked their way down the path from the waterfall. "I see what ya mean…"

Cloud came up to the pair, then squinted at the distant figures. He couldn't see a lot of detail, but the visible red was enough for him to know who it was. "Something wrong?"

"I'll try to find out from her," Tifa sighed, taking another look through the binoculars, "but I don't think we should put them on a mission together for a few days at least."

Cloud was confused, "Really? They work so well together."

Tifa sighed, Cloud just didn't get it…

****

_"Give him back! Give me back my son!"_

_"No, you are too unstable, you could hurt him."_

_"Because you wouldn't let me hold him! Not even once!"_

_"I thought you were a scientist, he is the subject of our experiment"_

_"No! That's not all he is. He's my son! I am his mother! I.. I.."_

_"You appear to be experiencing vertigo. You should go lay down.."_

Where had that come from? That was no memory of his.

Sephiroth recognized Hojo's voice, but not the woman's. "Our experiment," he had said. When was the last time Hojo shared credit with anyone? When he told the woman to lay down, there was a hint of something to it. Not just derision or fatigue, but something a little soft…

He wanted to laugh at the thought of Hojo showing anyone any kind of sympathy.

He firmed his resolve and found the newest relay the Cetra had set up, crushing it and ignoring the vision of Hojo's glasses and a woman with long brown hair. He did not know where this had come from, but he had an idea as to how the Mako-eyed twit got someone else's memories to him.

****

Ralena was following the long silver hair down the hall, a few feet behind seemed like no distance at all, but a quick glance behind her somehow made her lose sight of him. A strange dizziness struck her and she halted for a moment when Sephiroth turned the corner. Her hand on the wall, she shook it off. Then froze when she heard voices coming from her left.

One of them was Sephiroth, he must have run into someone… but hadn't he turned the other way? That was normally the way they took to the Training Room. Who else would be up at this hour? She moved to the corner that led down the hall where the voices came from and peeked around, flipping up the visor on her borrowed SOLDIER helmet to see better.

They were standing in front of one of the doors. Sephiroth, a dark haired SOLDIER and Dr. Hollander, another longtime resident of the Science Department, they all looked a little fuzzy to her. She blinked her eyes several times, wondering what was wrong with her vision. She listened silently, surely Sephiroth didn't want them to know she was here. That's why he wasn't-

A hand grabbed her wrist and she almost cried out in alarm. Her eyes widened when she saw who had her hand. "You're supposed to stay close." Sephiroth chastised, but his eyes were full of apprehension.

"But.. But you were over there," she said, looking back down the hall, which was now empty. "Is Genesis alright?"

For an instant his hand tightened on her wrist in surprise, but not enough to hurt. "What did you say?"

She looked at him with frightened eyes, "How were you in two places at once? Where did the other's go? ...Why are you sad?"

He was perplexed by her disjointed questions, and quickly decided it was better to get more information. "What are you talking about?"

"You were talking to Dr. Hollander and another SOLDIER about someone named Genesis. He's sick... he's not healing from Mako energy in an injury." She looked confused at her own words, as her eyes faded back to hazel. "Didn't Dr. Hollander leave? I haven't seen him in a while."

Sephiroth stiffened, that conversation had been months ago. After a while staring at her, he put a hand on top of her helmeted head, as if to pet a puppy to let them know they weren't in trouble. "Let's go back to your room."

"But why? I was looking forward to the Training Room," she said, eyes wide and pleading, proving out the puppy analogy. "Is it because I stepped away? I didn't mean to, I thought you were down the other hall."

"There is something we need to discuss, I am not mad."

"You are upset..." She pouted.

He looked at her hazel eyes, the girl's emotional intelligence was growing by leaps and bounds. He supposed with her abilities it was only natural, especially once she knew what was going on. He sighed, "Yes, but it's not your fault. We can't stay in the hall, let's head back."

****

Ralena was sitting on the top deck of the ship against the railing, feet dangling hundreds of feet above the ground. They were moving along at an easy cruising speed after picking up Barret's team, but her hair still whipped around. For now this was as good a place as any to be alone.

She had tried to not think about the day before, humming some classical piece of music that Sephiroth taught her on the piano. It was a hopeless cause, hazel eyes stared at the mountains passing before her and flashes of other people's memories came to her. She closed her eyes and tried to separate out her emotions from the ones the memory brought with it. Eventually, since she could not keep them out, she gave up and she let her mind wander through what she had seen. In some cases it was easy, in others her feelings were far too close to what came with it.

Moments from both Vincent and Lucrecia's lives came back to her, more vividly then her normal recall was capable of. Right now it was Lucrecia's that came through the most. The death of Grimoire Valentine, pursuing Vincent with a haze of guilt over her heart. Leaving him out of fear and uncertainty. Agreeing to the experiment, the realization of what she had done, losing her son. Her attempt to save Vincent while taking a slow slide into insanity.

Yesterday, after Ralena had changed into dry clothes she heard that Vincent had gone back down to the cave. In her head, Ralena knew that Vincent was _probably_ his normal, subdued self. Still, there were a number of possible scenarios that went through her head, from the innocent to the explicit. Very few of them made her feel good about the imagined encounter. The visions she had gotten had showed her a side of him she had never known. To be fair, after what he had been through since then, she wouldn't be surprised if he could not be that person anymore.

That thought hurt.

Last night she had dreamed, and the Vincent in it was a mahogany-eyed, Turk-suited version. She had been happy about it at first. Even if it was a dream, she got to see him without haunted eyes, there was even a little bit of an endearing cluelessness. At one point she met him in the darkened halls and they embraced, but when he called her tenderly by _Lucrecia's_ name she had awoken and had to fight back tears.

Thinking about it again, she shut her eyes tight and grabbed her head. Wishing she could banish the thought forever. She would rather go back in a Mako pod then have him call her by that name again.

She didn't hear the footsteps approach. Not that it would have told her anything. Almost everyone on the airship wore boots. "So… What happened?" She turned and saw Tifa settle down beside her, her back to the railing. She sat a little closer than they normally would, but it was necessary to hear each other over the wind. "And don't bother telling me it was 'nothing'."

Ralena wasn't surprised that her friend came to see her. There weren't many people on board and her mood since yesterday would have been hard to miss. "I saw…" she trailed off. "There was some materia crystals in there. I got… someone else's memories in my head… some are pretty painful." Oddly, the happy ones that hurt her more.

Honest concern touched the Tifa's face. "Are you going to be ok?" She knew the woman was leaving out details, but they could talk about that later when it wasn't so raw.

She shrugged, "In a while… I guess. It's not as… intense as the crater was, and it was over pretty quick by comparison."

"If you need to talk to someone, and I can't believe I'm saying this," Tifa said, "Maybe you should talk to Cloud."

"Cloud?" she asked incredulously, "Really?"

The brawler shrugged, "I mean, it's not exactly the same, but tell me who else you know that remembered being someone else."

The redhead sighed, "You got me there."

"Ladies!" a speaker squawked nearby in Cid's voice, "We're gonna pick up the pace and get to a higher altitude, so I need you to come inside!"

As the two closed the hatch behind them, Tifa turned to her. "Just remember, you can come talk to me when you need," she smiled, "After all, it's part of the bartender's job description."

Ralena smiled, and nodded. As the brunette walked away the empath took a deep breath and brought her senses back up to their neutral state. She took a few steps, then stopped.

Something was… off. Her eyes pulsed a brighter green for a second. Something different was on the ship. Something that wasn't here yesterday, but felt… oddly familiar, like a song she had only heard once. It was faint to her, probably because of all of the metal between her and it.

She was almost thankful, it was something else to put her mind to.

She had something to hunt.

****

Vincent sat in his bunk on the Highwind, staring at the materia that Lucrecia had given him. He had ignored it yesterday, until dreams came along that night and Chaos saw to making him feel trapped and useless.

Inside the materia was a swirling blackness. Despite it lacking any notable features, he felt it was looking at him. When Lucrecia had mentioned the item, it had rolled out from under the crystal structure, like a called pet, then abruptly turned toward him on an unnatural path through water and uphill.

"In case you need it's strength," she had said.

"The strength of what?"

"Of the final being inside you… I'm sorry…"

It had been a lost cause to talk to her after that, she had gotten stuck on apologizing and would say little else. He couldn't get near her either. The strange energies of the cave seemed to keep him at bay.

He closed his fist around the dark orb. Or maybe it was his own cowardice.

In truth what could he say? What could he really do for her? Things were different, of that there was no doubt. He couldn't tell her about Sephiroth being out to destroy the planet. All he could think to do was bring her some supplies. The cave certainly didn't look like Lucrecia had brought anything for comfort. He hoped it would help her mental state to have some things to make her feel more human.

He had wanted to talk to her more, but the cave was empty when he returned.

He closed his eyes and took a deep breath. The memories had been plastered in front of him and all of the joy and pain was fresh again. From his perspective, those events had barely been over a year ago, but the last few months had seemed so long. So many things had happened. He had made friends. Real and honest friends that would lay down their lives for each other. People who accepted him and his transformations with little more than a note of caution and a plan in case he went too far. That fact alone made it easier to deal with.

Then there was Ralena, who had called him down to see Lucrecia. He had known there was something wrong, the way she sounded when she spoke to him, like she didn't want to tell him. When he got there, there were signs that she was upset, like she thought he would be mad at her.

What he had seen was not everything that happened. It was like a montage in a movie, but there was time with Lucrecia, his arguments with her and Hojo and time under Hojo's knife.

Ralena had seen the memories, after he thought about it he had no doubt. His shock must have been potent enough to trigger her abilities, leaving the door wide open for the magic of the cave to force the visions into her mind. The intensity of those days, those moments, she knew it all first hand. Her reaction would not have been as extreme if she had only felt an aimless ball of emotion.

When he rejoined her outside, Vincent was sure Ralena had been crying after that. The spray from the falls did little to hide the red of her eyes and the slight puff to her face. On top of that she had refused to look at him. He sighed, loosening his grip on the orb. She was always around to see the worst of him.

He was sorry for her. She did not need to see all that.

Reliving the feeling of his first conscious transformation made him wince, the now familiar sensation of his bones reshaping and his skin stretching, but this time he didn't have the benefit of bloodlust to temper his perception of the pain. Only the shame, despair and horror he'd been feeling then. Strangely he also felt the lost, fearful confusion of Ulster, born into a new, alien environment he knew he shouldn't be in.

He stared at the materia again. Even without instruction he knew how to use it, but once he did there would be no going back. Something inside him called to it, raged at the fact that the key to its prison was in sight and was not being used. If he unlocked this new form... He would be less human than he already was.

He scoffed, pocketing the item for now. He would keep it, just in case.

He stood and went to the door, opening it. He wasn't sure whether or not he was surprised to see Ralena standing on the opposite side of the hall. Leaning against the wall beside her door, green eyes looking at him with a slightly haunted look.

"Ralena…" he greeted with a measure of uncertainty.

"What did you bring back?" she asked, no small amount of apprehension in her voice. He simply looked back at her, and she knew he would want an explanation. She turned her eyes towards the ground, unable to keep eye contact. "When I went back into neutral I felt something... strange. I wandered the ship till I found the source of it…"

When the trail led her to his bunkroom, she wanted to run. But knowing that the strange feeling was with him she had to stay, she had to help him. The Others within him were something he was getting over, except for the last one. He refused to talk about it aside from acknowledging its existence. He never even told her its name before. She couldn't abandon him, no matter how much her heart ached in his presence.

"How?"

He didn't always need to form full sentences with her. "I can only assume that Jenova cells are not the only things I can sense inside of people."

"You can feel it?" The very idea horrified him, the idea that the dark thing inside of him could reach her. He suspected that Chaos had managed to drag their nightmares together in the past, but she had never shown signs of detecting his inner beasts before... It must be because of that cursed materia in his pocket.

She shook her head, "Not like I do people. It's… If I were to compare it to sound, it's like something just within your range of hearing. You can tell it's there, and the direction, but nothing beyond that. Probably because it's… restrained," she said the last word as though she was unsure it was the proper term, squinting in confusion at his chest.

He was more certain now than before that he didn't want to use the damned thing. "I don't intend to use it." She raised a brow then there was a moment of glow to her eyes, and they widened. "What?"

"Umm… I was wrong. It is definitely not happy with that declaration."

He stiffened, "Perhaps I should lose it at sea then."

She shook her head sadly, stepping forward, letting her eyes light up again. "The thing in your pocket is a… conduit," she put her hand to his chest, "the entity itself is in here." She lifted her eyes from where her hand was and looked him in the eye for the first time since they had greeted each other.

He clenched his jaw and looked away. He was getting angry, not at her, but his situation. He was so frustrated with his cursed body. Always losing control when control mattered most. At first he had accepted it as a punishment for his sins, but as time went on, he was beginning to see how much he had unnecessarily taken onto himself. "Then _it_ should stay inside," he said through his teeth.

"A chained beast will only rage more," she said with pity. She felt that she didn't really have anything useful to say. "It has woken up and sensed its way out, there is now a weak link in the chain. If you don't let it out, it will tear its way out of you." She was pained by the proclamation. If it happened that way, she was not sure the Vincent she knew would survive.

His fists and jaw clenched and his eyes shut tight. He didn't know how to handle feeling this vulnerable. Chaos would be released, and there was nothing he could do about it. "I… I don't want to be less human."

Hesitantly, she brought her hand up to his cheek. Surprised at the touch he looked at her. "Being what you are does not make you a monster." Sympathy and sincerity radiated gently from her hand. She normally wouldn't do this without asking first, but she wanted him to know how much she truly meant the next words. "No matter what form you take, you will always be Vincent Valentine. I can always feel you under there… No matter _how many_ forms you take, you are more human than the monster that made you this way."

Blushing, she got up on her toes and kissed his forehead.

He felt the gentle pressure of her lips through the bandana, and didn't realize he had been holding his breath until she broke all contact, removing her hand as well.

"There you are!"

They both started at the voice, looking down the hall they saw Barret, being trailed by a reluctant Nanaki. "Yes," she sighed, "Here we are."

"Was your hunt successful?" Nanaki asked.

"Hunt?" Vincent asked, suddenly confused.

The feline nodded, "I saw you earlier, before Barret came by. He thought something was wrong. I told him you had the posture of a hunter and that you would be fine."

She smiled, leave it to Nanaki to understand her bizarre behavior. "It was," she said, "I found what I was looking for." She made a point of not looking in Vincent's direction.

"And what was that?" Barret asked, clearly expecting it to be a stowaway.

"Answers," she said. "Why don't we go to the mess for lunch?"

"Wait, answers to what?" Barret asked, confused.

She smiled and shook her head. "Sorry, " she said, trying to turn on a more carefree attitude. It was hard on the heels of a moment so serious, but Barret was easy to derail with a happy-girl-smile, when he didn't think Yuffie was being a brat, she could run circles around him. Nanaki and Vincent would not be fooled, but the former wouldn't pry and the latter was the subject of the matter.

Vincent watched her lead a flustered Barret down the narrow hall, the warmth from her hand fading from his cheek.

****

Sephiroth sat on the lip of an old wooden well, staring off into the distance. It was on a clearing on a hill in some woods. They were high enough that they could see over the trees, mountains were to the north and beyond the horizon to the east there was the barest visible line of the ocean.

Ralena sat in the grass, leaning against the well, eyes closed and listening to the sounds and absorbing the warmth from the light. They had watched the sunrise not long ago. "Seph…" she said, opening her green eyes, "why are you worried?"

He looked at her and dropped the poker face for a minute, "You're not supposed to do that without asking." He scolded lightly, leaning forward to push a finger into her forehead.

Ralena waved his hand off. "Sorry," she pouted, "But it's harder when it's strong."

"That is my fault then," he muttered. He thought about Genesis and Angeal and the mess that was turning out to be. Earlier that day he had turned down the mission for Modeoheim, Lazard gave him hard time for doing it again, but agreed to pass it on to Zack. He had hoped visiting Ralena would take his mind off of it. He had been wrong. "Ralena… what makes a monster?"

"Needles," she answered without thinking.

The strange and rapid answer caught him off guard, "What?"

She pulled up her knees, her eyes were fading in and out as she tried to get a handle on her ability. "Doing mean things to people," she whispered, "hurting them for no reason… and not caring."

Sephiroth turned his gaze back into the distance at the holographic horizon, and the orange sun that was beginning to turn yellow. He knew very well who she was talking about. Hojo had his reasons of course, they just weren't enough for most people to justify those kinds of actions. "What about wings?"

Having no context for why he would ask, the strangeness of the question caused confusion to bloom from her. "Why would it? Birds have wings, they're not monsters." Ralena watched fake birds flying in the distance, "I think they're pretty."

"Do you think it matters…" he mused aloud, "How we're made?"

They shared a look, she couldn't pull herself out of the morose thoughts with him in the same boat. "No," she held out her hand and looked at it. "I think I look normal, but we know I'm not… The doctor made me into this." Her glowing green gaze turned back to his. "Do you care how I became this? Do you care that I _am_ this?"

He stared at her, unsure if the philosophy books he secreted to her had been a good idea. He didn't blame her for thinking about herself on this… or was she? He shook his head at her question, "No." He grabbed her hand with his, "Being what you are does not make you a monster."

She smiled up at him empathetically, "Exactly. The same goes for you."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Well… I definitely broke my personal rule about the number of flashbacks in one chapter…


	27. Separation of Concerns

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A Meditation on Failure; Conference room; Mission Talk; Butcher and Bitch; On the Highwind; A little Music; Milk Runner

Rufus looked away from his email and sighed. He already knew what information would be here. Heidegger had one of his subordinates call him yesterday to give a verbal report. The coward must have remembered how the former President took reports of failure.

Not that Junon being attacking by a massive, ocean bound, organism created by the planet was exactly something a person could have planned for effectively. He was sad to admit that it was almost a good thing that Avalanche had them fire the cannon in their escape. It meant the Sister Ray had a thorough maintenance check and it was in top shape when the thing attacked. They had to use it _twice_ on the Weapon.

There was a lot going on right now and Rufus wasn't sure how he was going to handle it all. Reactor attacks, Weapons on the loose, a barrier going up over the Northern Crater barely a week after they lost contact with the camp outside of it. At this point the activities of Avalanche were barely a blip on his radar anymore. He would have to call the Turks back, he needed to reassess his priorities, the landscape had shifted too drastically since the Nibelheim reactor was destroyed.

Hell, given all of madness that had cropped up since the former president's death, Rufus had been so busy moving forward that he hadn't really taken the time to think about what was really happening. Oh, sure he had been making plans for years, thinking about how he would do things differently when he took over. Those plans had been made with the idea that his father had might still be around, watching him. Those plans had also been made for relatively peaceful times. These were far from peaceful times. Since his appointment as president, he had done a great deal of _reacting_.

He walked out to his massive wrap around balcony, his mind going through his priorities. He was going to scrap the Neo-Midgar project, at least for now. Besides, it had been his father's idea, not his.

His father had never liked failure. He always insisted on moving onward and upward. But when things went wrong, he just left them where they lie. "_Like every rich kid with a broken toy,_" Reno had said once. "_Throw it in the garbage and get a fucking new one._" Why not reuse old things? He gaze went down to the wreckage below him.

The remains of Sector 7.

He looked at the dark, lightless gap in the city scape, twisted metal and dust where a whole _eighth_ of the city used to be.

His father had refused to rebuild it, he wanted to put everything into Neo-Midgar. A newer, better, _shinier_ Midgar. Wasn't abandoning the existing city the same as admitting defeat? Tuesti had ideas, lots of ideas to make the city they already had better. The Sector 7 incident was unfortunate, but it gave them a clean slate to build on. Ok, not a clean one, but the demolition was already done.

A frown touched his calculating expression. A demolition that took place without an evacuation order. At the time Rufus acted like he didn't care… and at first he hadn't. He hadn't even thought about it. A lot of property damage was just dollars, a lot of deaths was a "reduced work force," and a "drop in sales." He had always been taught to think about the bottom line, the big picture.

Rufus still remembered the sound of it. Even sixty floors up and indoors the sound of screeching metal had reached his ears. Several seconds after he saw the plate settle he remembered the feeling of the vibration coming though his feet and watching the liquid in his glass ripple. At that time, he did not think he would remember it with such vivid detail.

At that time, Rufus did not think about what it _really_ meant.

He hadn't seen the real effects of the plate dropping until weeks later. It was barely a day afterward that his father had been killed and Rufus had left to do a tour of all of the companies holdings as a cover for chasing after Sephiroth. When he finally returned to ShinRa Tower, nearly a month later, he could see the mood of many of his employees had changed. Again, he had ignored it at first, _"All that matters is that the little people get their work done,"_ his father had once told him. _"I motivate them using their own greed."_

But that didn't motivate the "little people" anymore. They were just trying to move forward. Burying themselves in work or alcohol, or whatever little vice or hobby got them through. His secretary had a close friend who had lived in Sector 7, he spotted her depression most out of anyone, it came and went, and she dutifully went about her job, but he had seen through the cracks in her armor.

He had seen photos of the sector's upper and lower train stations, those were adjacent to the plate and the area beneath. He had seen the images of walls plastered with missing persons photos. He had seen images of rows of bodies, covered in black plastic because even ShinRa didn't have enough body bags.

He knew the exact number of Tower employees that went missing after the drop, 327. A relatively small number compared to the population of Sector 7, as most of the tower employees were housed in Sectors 5 and 6. But he had no idea how many had really been _affected_ by it. Friends, family, things that he did not see like a normal person. He did not think he would ever understand that kind of loss… until Tseng was killed.

He had told Cloud when they first met that he would motivate people through fear. He saw now that it was a fine line. He had to make them fear a world _without_ ShinRa, he had to make ShinRa a beacon of hope… which he thought was rather ironic.

The attacks on the Mako Reactors was… he disliked using the word 'convenient', but it did allow him to think about turning things around. He didn't intend to do anything as drastic as shutting down all of the Mako reactors and powering the world with bullshit dreams of a utopia. But a city where a patch of plant life wasn't seen as an oddity might be nice.

The public didn't know about all that. The media machine was already moving. All they knew was that a new terrorist group, led by a former high level ShinRa operative was responsible. He had yet to let tell them Sephiroth's name. ShinRa had painted the man as a War Hero that died in the line of duty. Not as a lifelong science project who had lost his shit. Reeve's and Elena's reports gave him an interesting perspective on that. Rufus would have very much liked to talk to Valentine about Hojo.

ShinRa was the cause of the current situation, at least partially. Hojo had his fair share of the blame, but who funded him and gave him resources? Rufus took a drink, he was still giving Hojo resources.

He looked at the former Sector 7 and the wastes beyond it. His father's legacy, his father's ShinRa, Inc. was leaving the world coated in ash…

*******

"When I said to get a conference room," Vincent sighed, "That wasn't an invitation to do this again."

This had been another one of his wandering dreams, where Ulster explored new territory. Now the Death Gigas, Talos, lumbered along as well, though it- _he_ mostly just walked to the middle of an area and stood, turning his head slowly to take in their surroundings. Occasionally Slasher would make an appearance, but only if the place was ill lit.

When Vincent walked into the building of the forgotten city, he found himself in a version of the meeting room they had used in the Golden Saucer. His old Turk self was sitting at the head of the table, waiting expectantly.

"Really?" his Turk-self asked. A television on the wall flickered on and displayed the outside of ShinRa Manor. "Would you prefer to go back to Nibelheim?" He was fully suited this time, flanked by Ulster and Talos where he sat. Were there anyone else here, it would have seemed a rather intimidating pair of bodyguards or guard dogs. Slasher, the Hellmasker was standing in the corner, like a bedroom monster lurking in the darkest spot in the room, which looked darker than it should have been. Vincent somehow got the feeling that this was the equivalent of it sitting with its feet propped up on a table.

"Is there a reason for this… meeting?"

"You let her be alone," the Turk said with a tone of disapproval.

"What was I supposed to do? Drag Lucrecia out?"

"Not her," the Turk sighed. The Galian beast seemed to growl at him again in displeasure. Talos was impossible to read.

"She's a strong, grown woman."

"Does that mean you should just abandon her to deal with the aftermath?"

"I didn't- _She's_ the one avoiding _me_."

"Except for when she thought _you_ needed help. She didn't wait for you to go to her."

"She knew I wouldn't."

The Turk raised a brow at him.

"What?"

There was a low rumble from the inscrutable Talos. "Just as you won't reach out to her, she won't come to you either."

Was this really the angle he was going for? Crimson eyes narrowed in annoyance, "She has before."

"Really? After Midgar, how many times have you noticed she was having trouble and offered to help her before she asked?"

Thinking back it was a difficult question to answer. Most of those exchanges had been non-verbal, they could have been thinking the same thing at the same time. How much of that was really just a matter of timing anyway?

"Ugh, fine," the suited man said, leaning back in the chair, "don't take that as a sign."

"A sign of what? She's upset about me, about_ my past._ I doubt she wants to hear anything from me right now."

"Are you sure this is just about you?"

"Why do you always say 'we' until you think _I_ am doing something wrong?"

A rumble that shook the room, and the sound of something heavy striking the door filled the room. His old self and the Others looked surprised. Vincent turned to the door as another loud thud struck it. A tremendous thunderclap filled his ears and everything turned white for an instant.

His vision came back and Vincent found himself outside, somewhere in the wilderness. He turned and saw his Turk self standing by a river and looking the other way.

"What happened to the Others?" Vincent asked the Turk.

"I have commandeered this image," he responded, "The Others do not need to be here for this."

Vincent stilled as the form turned. His usually mahogany brown eyes were all yellow, like egg yolk, the ring of his irises and pupils were a darker shade, but otherwise the same, his skin was also cast with a hint of grey.

"Chaos…" Vincent said in recognition and disgust.

"Is this not an easier form to communicate with?" It seemed to have Vincent's voice and speech pattern, but there were strange and subtle differences he couldn't put his finger on.

"What do you want?" Vincent asked, he wanted as little contact with this entity as possible.

"Isn't it obvious?"

Of course it was. It wanted out.

Vincent's jaw clenched, damn that Materia in his pocket. As Ralena had said, Chaos had detected it, and it looked like it gave the thing a more direct line into his head. He could at least appreciate the fact that it was asking at all.

"I do like that one," Chaos said, apparently reading his mind. "She reminds me of an old friend."

"You don't seem the type to have friends."

"Neither do you."The yellow eyed version of his younger self smiled smugly. "Warriors are fine, but she is not a warrior. She is a hunter. I do prefer them."

"What's the difference?"

"Do you not know? What does a hunter do that a warrior does not?"

Vincent was silent a few seconds before he realized that the conversation would not continue unless he responded. "Both kill. Hunters, hunt."

"Yess, they pursue their _prey, _they _chase_ it." The yellow eyed Turk almost looked hungry at the idea. "Whereas warriors must have their enemies put in front of them, like a cub learning to survive."

"You like the hunt," Vincent said blandly, "That's obvious." He clearly remembered the dream from Icicle Inn, the excitement of the chase. The sight of prey fleeing, the smell of its sweat, the sound of its heart beating loudly in its chest. The look of fear in those cat-slitted eyes.

Chaos almost seemed disappointed with that response. "What I set my eyes on, I destroy. Hunters do not just slay their prey, they butcher and skin it, some even use the bones. They wear it and consume it." He took a deep satisfied breath, "It reminds me of the old days…" An image of Ralena emerged out of the river behind Chaos, pulling a lasso-gator out behind her. Silently, she went about butchering the animal, ignoring their presence. Vincent suddenly realized where in his memory this spot came from, as he did the landscape subtly altered to become more accurate and detailed.

"Leave her out of this," Vincent said, an edge of protectiveness in his voice. "Why should I let you out?"

A brow raised, "Why shouldn't you? The Others all get to come out and play, what makes me so different?"

"You are much more powerful," Vincent said plainly, Chaos smirked at the recognition. "You are different than the others. Not just in power, but in how we became… attached. Do you know what will happen to me if I set you free?"

Chaos chuckled, "Why do you think I would know?"

"You don't?" Vincent's eyes trailed over to the form of the hunter behind Chaos. As Ralena skinned the beast, gator skin clothing replaced her own.

Chaos snorted in amusement, "Do you think I have been imprisoned inside another living being before? What makes you think I know any more about this than you do?"

"Aren’t you a primal entity from the planet?"

"Do you expect me to know how many fish are in the ocean? Or perhaps predict the weather, as well?"

"Aerith called you a hurricane. I don't know if I would survive you."

Chaos blinked at him, "You seem to think I will consume you and you will be no more."

Vincent narrowed his eyes suspiciously, "Isn't that what you do? Destroy?"

There was rich bombastic laughter, a form of his voice that was alien to his own ears. It reminded him of his father. "You are mistaken, oh vessel of mine, I do such things to my _enemies _and my_ prey_. You have not yet had the misfortune to be labeled as either. I hate to say, but your dear scientist was going off of poorly translated, pieces of _poetry_. What little you do know of me is suspect."

"It changes little."

"One of your enemies carries the taint of the Calamity from the Sky. I desire its absolute destruction. You know this well. Frankly, I am getting bored of simply_ waiting_ for you to get to it." Yellow eyes narrowed at him, "I want… I need to burn every bit of that creature to ash."

Vincent looked at the other critically, wondering how Cloud factored into this. How all of the SOLDIERs counted, as humans modified with Jenova cells would Chaos wish to hunt them as well?

"You should not worry," the entity said, "I believe I will simply become another form of your… what do you call it? Limit Break? There should be nothing different, just let me out."

That was still plenty to worry about. He had a strange sort of arrangement with the others. Without that it was difficult to pull him back into his own body. If Chaos got out of the box, there was no guarantee that something as powerful as it could be put back if it didn't go willingly.

Vincent watched the image of Ralena inspect her new, gator skin clothing. Including the tail that came off of the back. She looked his way, for the first time acknowledging him before she smirked and dove into the water.

He didn't want Chaos near _any_ of his friends. "No." Vincent said finally then turning as if to leave.

Chaos smirked at him, "We shall see."

********

"Is everything alright with you and Ralena?"

Vincent brought the binoculars down to look at Cloud who was standing beside him in the sentry post, "Why do you ask?" the gunman asked as blandly as possible.

"Tifa saw you two after you left the waterfall the other day. She said you probably needed time apart, but I don't know why," Cloud said plainly. "So I'm asking about it."

Vincent thought back to the last planning meeting, Tifa had quickly suggested that she go hunting along with Nanaki and Ralena, and fully backed the reasons for Cloud to take Vincent. He bit back a sigh, at least she intended on taking care of Ralena. "Is now really the time?"

"Why not? We got at least…" He looked at the time on his phone, "ten minutes until the army hits the first of our defenses." Despite the fact that Tifa was probably better for talking to the redhead, Cloud had hoped to have time to talk with her first. Given the nature of this mission, however, Vincent's skillset was much more appropriate, so the blonde leader had to make the best of what he had.

Cid sighed walking into the room, "I don't see why the damn ShinRa just don't wait another few weeks to get the damn Materia from the reactor." When they got the call for this mission, Red XIII had insisted that they take it. The trio were at Fort Condor, apparently the ShinRa were after huge Materia that was condensed in the reactors. The people who manned this particular reactor had refused to hand theirs over. A rare phoenix had nested on the roof and had an unhatched egg. To take the Materia would disturb the nest, and they knew how the ShinRa military would handle things.

"The ShinRa have never been known for their patience." Vincent said.

"Or reacting well to being told 'no'" Cloud added.

"I know, I know," the captain grunted, taking a drag of his cigarette. "Bullshit stuff like this makes me wonder if they're tryin' to drag us out."

"The thought had crossed my mind," Vincent said, "But I imagine the Weapon attack on Junon might be speeding up their timetables." This one didn't feel like a Turk setup, it was too remote, the Turks would want to catch them in an urban environment, close to ShinRa facilities where they could lock them down quickly. Any job that came up in the big cities was highly scrutinized. So far, the only one they had taken included evading the Turks. This new generation of Turks was good, but there were too few of them and Avalanche had a habit of thinking sideways at the most unexpected moments.

"Bringing it back around, I need to know for planning. Are you and Ral alright?"

Suddenly realizing the conversation that he had interrupted, Cid suppressed a smirk and leaned forward against his spear.

"At the moment it is difficult to say," Vincent said honestly. Aside from their conversation outside of his bunk, the empath had avoided him for two days, which was quite a feat considering their rooms were across the hall from each other and the ship wasn't _that_ big. He had barely caught a few glimpses of red hair or her retreating back before the mission briefings, during which she refused to look his way. After that he hadn’t seen her until they dropped the hunting party off. He was bothered by the idea that she likely used her abilities to stay away from him.

"Does it have to do with those supplies you took to that cave?" Cid asked with a hint of faux innocence.

"What supplies?" Cloud asked, confused.

A subtle, red eyed glare looked at Cid for a second. No doubt he had heard about it from the ship's quarter master. "Someone is living back there. I thought they could use them."

"huh," Cloud said aloud in thought. "Why did she call you down for that?" The blonde was legitimately confused. When it came to things like supplies and humanitarian efforts Ralena herself or Tifa would normally have been the ones consulted.

"Yeah," Cid quipped, "Was it your ex-girlfriend or something?"

There was a subtle stillness that stole over the gunman's form in that moment. "Ah well, whatever it was," Cid continued, pretending he did not notice how close to home his joke had landed. "It'll be fine,"

Cloud looked at the other man skeptically, "How would you know?"

"'Cause, Lena’s the type to get over it," Cid said, almost dismissively, "I mean, you didn't see her after the crater, Cloud. If she can recover from that, then she’ll be fine after a few more days, tops. I swear, sometimes you worry more than Shera," The captain then looked up in thought for a moment, "Ok, maybe not."

Vincent turned his gaze back to the path that the army would be forced to come up. By the time they got back from dealing with this, she would probably be _acting_ like everything was normal. He was willing to let the others believe that, otherwise he would have to tell them more than he was inclined to. Maybe she just needed another way to vent. He wanted her to _be_ ok, not pretend that she was.

He picked up his sniper rifle and moved to the ladder that led to rooftop platform, a gun like this would leave them deaf if he fired inside such a small room. Once outside he looked down the path for signs of their enemy, they were still a ways off. That left him time for a quick phone call.

*****

Determined to help her friend with whatever was bothering her, Tifa had convinced Cloud to send Ralena out hunting, since that put her in her element. Now, unfortunately, she was remembering why she herself disliked it so much. At the moment they were in a small clearing where Red XIII had downed a deer, while both women were perfectly capable of felling the animal, the feline's kills were cleaner and left the meat in a better condition.

Tifa was glad that the redhead was too distracted to ask her to dress the animal. The brawler was still coming to terms with everything that needed to be done before meat hit the plate. It was strange, she grew up in remote Nibelheim, she should be familiar with all of these steps, but as they mayor's daughter she had been sheltered from some of the raw processing that hunters and butchers engaged in.

"I just don't know why it had to happen now…" Ralena suddenly pouted out loud.

There was brief confusion at the sudden comment. Tifa watched as the redhead slice open the animal, and thought there was something wrong with the carcass. "What just happened? What's wrong?"

Green eyes looked up at her and it looked like the empath had not intended to speak out loud. "The thing with Vincent," she sighed, cutting some anatomy in the neck. "I thought I had myself figured out and now..."

"Does it have to do with your onboard hunting the other day?" Red XIII asked, trying not to look too hungry.

"Yes, well no… I mean-" Ralena sighed. Tifa was trying to pay attention to the conversation, but the bartender was thrown off at the casual nature of the other two, to them this act was the same as talking while cooking dinner. She paled slightly as Ralena threw down the knife which stuck in the ground and then stuck her hands in the carcass and removed all of the organs in a single move. "Ugh! I'm just confused! I thought I was fine with what we were, but…"

Ralena put the entrails down in front of red cat, who licked his lips, but he had the manners to wait while she took the liver aside. Ralena was the only person that Tifa knew who actually_ liked_ liver. "Do you believe he has intentions to mate with you?" the feline asked. Tifa tried not to choke at the question, but the redhead just breezed past the bluntness of it.

"I doubt it," she said in frustration. "That's my problem."

"Humans are 'onfusin'" Red XIII said around a mouthful of… was that lung? He swallowed, "Why are you all so complicated? You enjoy each other's company, and you are a capable warrior and hunter. What more could he want?"

The redhead gave him a thankful smile, "I know! I wish we could be like you, Nanaki."

The cat grinned, "I you were like me, he would have competition." He took another bite of the organ and some blood squirted out of a valve. Nope. That was a heart.

Tifa dragged her eyes away from the sight of the feasting feline, "Maybe that's what he needs. You know, a little competition, for a push."

"No way," Ralena sighed, yanking tight a rope around the feet in order to hang up the animal. "I don’t want to lead anyone else on. Besides my only options for that are basically the crewmen and none of them are…" After a second, the huntress gave up searching for the word. Tifa didn't need her to say it, none of them were _Vincent_.

"I'm surprised you don't already know how he feels given what you can do..." The brawler said, moving to help string up the carcass so the blood could drain.

"He doesn't exactly wear his heart on his sleeve." Ralena said pointedly. "When I'm in neutral, when I just have my empathy on passively, I only sense top later emotions and he _always_ has a layer of calm on top." Or at least when she had the luxury to pay attention he did. "To dig under that would be like peeking under his clothes…"

Tifa smirked, "I thought you wanted to do that too."

The other woman blushed and smirked at the same time. "Well, I managed that when he walked in on me." She sighed again as she tied the other end of the rope down. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to turn this into a bitching session."

"It's fine," the bartender said, "this is clearly bothering you, and we're your friends. Vincent isn't the only one you can talk to."

"I know, I know, but it's _dumb_," Ralena said, clearly frustrated at herself, "I mean we're fugitives carrying around a Doom Marble while there are giant monsters attacking cities, and Mako reactors are blowing up. It just doesn't seem like something I should even be worried about."

"It's not dumb," Tifa said, moving up to put a hand on her the other woman's shoulder, while not getting too close to her bloody hands. "Our lives are insane right now, but that's no reason not to try and live is it?"

"Shee ha a pon'," Red XIII said. Two confused glances were cast in his direction, as he swallowed. "Sorry," he said, a little sheepishly, "I said that she has a point."

"I guess… but how do I even go about it? I mean I'm still not sure what is going through his head, especially since we saw Lucrecia."

"Wait… _WHAT_?" Tifa asked, eyes wide. "When did _that_ happen?"

Ralena winced, "The waterfall... a few days ago. "

"The one where you said you got a dose of someone else's memori-" The brunette stopped and then stared at the other woman for a second. "Oh gods, don't tell me…"

The redhead nodded, looking sick at the thought. "I found her in a cave back there, it was filled with some kind of crystals. When he tried to approach her, some of their memories at Nibelheim got into my head…" Briefly her skin crawled at the thought, a strange mix of joy and pain.

"Oh, no…" Blood be damned, the woman needed a hug. Tifa wrapped her arms around her friend. "No wonder you were so bummed out. Does he know you saw it too?"

She felt a shrug, "I haven’t said, but I'm sure he's figured it out…"

Tifa squeezed her friend before pulling back again. "I can't even imagine… Are you sure you're going to be, ok? Do you need more time? We can stretch out our time out hunting if you want."

"I'm not sure it matters," Ralena turned away and moved to sit down by her pack, picking up a rag to wipe off her hands, then looking down at the ground. "There's no way he feels that way about me."

Ah, so that was the problem. "How can you be sure?" Tifa asked.

The fencer turned her face away from them and muttered quietly, "He's never looked at me that way…"

Tifa shared a look with Red XIII. The brunette wasn't so sure about that. There was definitely a look that Tifa had seen on Vincent's face after the towel incident. Judging by the expression on the cat's face, his superior senses, or perhaps just his observational skills and common sense, got him to the same conclusion.

Was this one of those weird things that if you were too close you couldn't see the signs? Not that Vincent gave many of them. Every time Tifa had seen one, the target of those expressions happened to be looking away. Several times she had seen his gaze linger on her a little longer than was warranted. He always made sure to grab her a blueberry muffin when they got them before the crew cleared them out. When he did join the sparring sessions in the cargo hold he only did so when Ralena was there. If his crass comments was anything to go by, then Tifa was certain that Cid had noticed something there too. Hell, even Yuffie had made a comment once or twice about them. Not that Tifa thought the shinobi linked her observations to attraction between the two. Still, all of the little things added up.

After some silence the redhead turned to Tifa, "On what is hopefully a better note, how are things with you and Cloud progressing?"

"So we're bringing down more than just prey animals today?"

"That bad huh?"

Tifa sat down beside the other woman, at this point it looked like the large feline was nose deep in his food and did not seem to be paying attention.

"I guess we got the same issue, they're both very focused on the mission. I mean, Cloud has mellowed out a lot now that he's got a better handle on who he is. But… I don’t know." Tifa shook her head. "Maybe they're thinking like you, '_now's not the time_.' -_Hmph_\- maybe when it comes to love, guys like them can just shut it down. "

"I don't think that's what is going on with Cloud," the redhead said.

Tifa arched a brow, "You know something I don't?"

"It's hard to say," Ralena shrugged. She knew Cloud was not immune to Tifa's charms, but he was weird about it in a way she could not put her finger on. Had she not been so isolated in her upbringing she might have been able to figure it out. She took a couple seconds before talking again, trying to think about how to phrase her next words. "From what we have put together, Cloud was in the Nibelheim lab around four years right?"

"Yeah…"

"And those years are… gone for him. Either he doesn't remember them or he was under almost the whole time. If you consider life experience, Cloud is four years younger than he seems."

"That's an… interesting way to think about it." Tifa said thoughtfully.

The redhead smirked, "I have to think of it that way, otherwise I have the hots for a guy who is almost 60." The brunette looked back at her for a second before laughing. "But seriously," Ralena said, "He's working through a lot, but he's also like a teenager… but without the crazy hormones…" Green eyes darted around in thought. "Wow, are we living weird lives…"

"I don't understand," Nanaki said, looking up with a blood covered muzzle. "Why don't you females show your interest more blatantly. Like how Cloud woke up with Iris on him that one time?"

The women laughed, and Ralena glanced over at Tifa, "Didn't we do that in Wutai?"

"Pretty sure the alcohol cancels out the message," the bartender said sagely.

"Hmmm… good point." They both put their thoughts to the idea and Ralena almost immediately shook her head, cheeks turning pink at the thought. Trying to sneak into Vincent's room only went a few ways, one of which included being shot on instinct for intruding his space uninvited. "It wouldn't work for me. Vincent is too light a sleeper, there is no way he wouldn't wake up."

"Yeah," Tifa muttered. "Doing that on the Highwind wouldn't quite work. And since we all share rooms or camp, doing that on a mission would just be awkward for the third wheel."

Ralena shrugged, "If it's me, I won't mind."

Nanaki nodded his agreement then licked his muzzle with a grin. "I agree, and I believe that Cloud's reaction would be well worth watching."

*****

Barret stared across the table, his chin resting on his fist. "I thought you had a life, Cait Sith. What are you doing here?"

"Well that hurts," the puppet pouted, "I do consider you guys friends, you know. Can't I just hang out with you? Besides, I missed most of the fun in Wutai."

Barret did have to admit to himself, albeit reluctantly that Cait Sith was trying to make up for a lot. He could not deny that the spy was the only reason he had been able to talk to his daughter at all since the crater. The man sighed, it wasn't that there was anything wrong with hanging out with Cait Sith and Yuffie, but what were they going to do? He couldn't drink with Cait Sith, and he didn't _want_ to deal with a drunk Yuffie, especially without the others to manage her. "And how much fun do you expect us to have? While most of us are out?"

"I dunno," Cait Sith shrugged, "You got any idea's Yuffie?"

"Maybe a game?" she said, then smirked, "How about darts?"

Barret glared at her and tapped the table once with his right forearm, "How about something the rest of us have a chance at winning?"

The young shinobi had the sense to look sheepish for apparently forgetting about the man's missing hand. "But I don't know any card games, and we don't have a mahjong set."

"How about dice?" Cait Sith suggested.

Barret raised a brow, "Are they the exploding kind?"

It looked like the stuffed toy was about to give an emphatic no, but stopped. "… do you want them to be?" he asked cautiously.

Barret grinned, "Might make things a little more interesting."

Yuffie sat up and grinned, "Yeah! Let's do it!"

The spy laughed shaking his head, "Fine, but we better do it somewhere we won't damage the ship or Cid will kill us."

*****

As the morning sun rose, Cloud was glad that their time at Fort Condor was just to buy time and that the ShinRa had not planned on Avalanche's intervention. Otherwise he doubted that they would have succeeded. As far as sieges went, four days was hardly much time, but that was how long it took for the egg to hatch. Once the phoenix was born the parent burst into flames and the already capable chick flew off. After that, the Fort's reasons for denying the ShinRa was gone, and they had all snuck out under the cover of night to avoid retaliation.

Vincent and Cloud had just finished a second head count of their refugees, and were finally headed below deck to their bunks for some much needed rest. Thinking about it, Cloud wasn't sure if Vincent had slept at all after their first day there.

They were walking passed the mess when they saw Red XIII, who was probably on his way to get breakfast.

"Hey Red, good news, we saved the phoenix egg."

The feline looked at the two men, and nodded curtly to Cloud.

Cloud was surprised at the brusque response. "How was the hunting?" he asked.

Nanaki looked back and forth between the two men, then turned his nose up and walked passed them with a, "_hmph!_"

Vincent blinked and watched the quadruped walk away. Red eyes turned to Cloud with a brow raised in inquiry.

"I don't know what happened," the blonde said, shaking his head in disappointment, "But he needs to go out with the guys next time…"

Late that afternoon, in the belly of the ship, Tifa and Ralena, for a lack of anything else to do, were in the cargo bay to help with some supplies. Due to the unscheduled pick up from Fort Condor, the Highwind was later than they had intended, and getting everything on board quickly was important. Once they were airborne and they saw crewman Harris pulling a long box out of the back of the jeep. "What is that?" Tifa asked.

"It's a keyboard," he replied, "Mr. Valentine asked me to pick one up. I'm taking it to the bar."

The two women watched as he rolled the box out on a dolly. "Don't look now," Tifa whispered, "But this might be a subtle apology."

"In the case of apologies, subtle doesn't cut it," Ralena replied. "Besides, maybe he just wanted one. He might think music would be a nice addition, that is not the same as getting it _for_ me."

"Hmmm… true." Tifa was pretty sure if he just wanted music a simple speaker system would have sufficed. Though for Vincent, a record player wouldn't have been unexpected either.

Frustration seeped off of the redhead's body and she let out a grunt of exasperation, startling the quarter master who was double checking the other supplies they had loaded up. "It's not like he really has anything to apologize for!" Ralena whispered to Tifa, hoping the background noise would prevent anyone else from making out what she said. "He didn't make all of… that happen."

Tifa sighed, the tangible waves of frustration, anger, joy and cautious hope were familiar. Every girl who had distantly loved someone for long enough had a moment where she didn't how she should feel when the object of her affection did things. Should I be mad? Is this a good sign? What does this _mean_? "Well, If he doesn’t say anything, then we'll just have to assume he wanted one in here," Tifa said. Even if Ralena was the only one on board who really knew how to play…

When they got to the hall where their bunks were, the two women stopped when they spotted a large envelope stuck to Ralena's door with a hefty magnet. They shared a glance before the fencer pried the envelope free. Inside was a slim book of sheet music and a note.

_"I hope this is to your liking -V_"

"I guess that settles it," Tifa said, "the keyboard is for you… well for you to use at least."

The empath smiled sadly, and ran her fingers over some of the music on the page. "I would be much happier if this didn't muddy the waters more."

Tifa looked at the frustrated woman thoughtfully and wondered. Were mixed signals better than no signals at all?

*****

Elena bristled as she went back to her office, doing her best not to slam the door open.

She hadn't even made it to her desk when Reno spun around the corner, leaning on the frame, a smirk on his face. "What's got you so worked up, rookie?"

"Scarlet asked Heidegger if she could 'borrow' me, like I'm a goddamn dog."

Reno laughed, "Sorry to say kid, you got a lotta that to look forward to. What's the job?"

_"It shouldn't be too difficult, darling. You can handle a simple pick up, right?"_

Elena resisted the urge to visibly shudder. "_Just_ a retrieval, my ass. She says it should be a milk run, but I don't trust the bitch."

The redhead laughed again, "Good instincts, it's probably not going to be as easy as she implied. Otherwise she wouldn't have called one of us in."

"I don't know what it is lately," Elena said, shaking her head, "but something about her just has me on edge."

"You sure it's not just the laugh?" Reno smirked.

"No, I've never liked her. I mean, no bitch dressed like that has good intentions."

"To be fair, you don't become the head of Weapons Development with good intentions."

Elena sighed, "I guess you're right… But I feel like she's not right in the head."

"Again, head of Weapons Development." He smirked, then he pushed off of the doorframe and moved over to lean forward on her desk. "But seriously, if you're instincts are telling you something is wrong, go ahead and poke around for evidence if ya got the time. You need proof if you're gonna report anything. If you find anything bring it to me first and _don't get caught_."

Elena nodded at his words. Reno may have looked like a slacker, but he was a dedicated member of the Turks and took his role as a mentor seriously. He was generally supportive and patient with her when it came to teaching her. He had bitched about a lack of time to train her properly, in the past she would not have been doing missions by herself for at least six more months. "I'll have to be cautious then."

"Fuck ya you will. Scarlet is not a woman to be trifled with. If you get caught sticking your nose in that beehive… Well I think both forms of the word 'terminated' would apply. And I don't want that to happen to you."

She winced, "You're probably right."

"So, who’s the mark?" he asked, turning the conversation back to official business.

"She didn't even have the courtesy to have the files ready!" Elena huffed and crossed her arms, "But you know what's worse?"

Reno raised a brow, he was having a hard time imagining anything else that could add on to the petite woman's ire.

"She said that _she'll be coming along!_"

The man winced in sympathy. "She probably has some new gizmo she wants to test in the field, I wouldn't take it as an insult," he said, pushing off of the desk and back to a standing position. "But, I can at least thank you for something."

"Oh? And what's that?" she asked with a suspicious glare.

"This makes running back out to Junon to baby sit the rest of the cannon move sound like the better job." He waved as he stepped out of view, "Have fun!"


	28. Chain Reaction

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Invader; All Hands; Contact With the Enemy; Bloodlust and Pandemonium; Library; Idiot

This time when the sound came to him, it was piano music. Sephiroth remembered it, any piece he had bothered to truly learn he could play without sheet music. This particular one was from an old mafia movie he had never seen. There was a moment where he was unsure if this was a memory or another signal sent through the Cetra's little relay.

It came with no voice and no imagery. When he found the little node of energy left by the Cetra he did not immediately destroy it. This proved by far to be the least annoying intrusion she had impressed upon him yet. So he took the time to study this little bit of magic. This was not something he had learned yet, but his studies over the past five years had been about affecting the physical world, not other forces within Lifestream. Now that he had enemies within Lifestream and without. He would figure out this puzzle, it would give him some amusement as well as another tool that may be of use later

In his mind he could see green Mako eyes and short red hair, could see her trying to get her small hands to play this music he heard now. He pushed the stray thought aside and focused on the signal, the magic, the method. Understanding it would allow him to better block it out later. He began to follow the signal back. A red line of energy traveled along it, one node, then two, three…

Abruptly the signal cut off.

Whatever method the woman used to project her thoughts into Lifestream where the Cetra bitch could find them must have been interrupted.

That was fine for the time being, he had other things to attend to right now anyway. Red threads of energy, like spiderwebs radiated out from him. Unlike Hojo's half-baked copies, Sephiroth had been able to use a combination of ShinRa technology and Cetra magic to make proper puppets this time. It was time for another mission, soon he would have everything he needed and then the real fun would begin.

****

"We've got a situation, all Avalanche members gear up and come to the bridge within the next five minutes," Cloud's voice announced over the speakers.

Ralena looked up from where she had been playing the piano in the empty bar. Taking only a second to grab the music book, she got up and rushed to her bunk to get her weapons. She did not know what was going on, but it couldn't be good. She was nearly to her room when Vincent stepped out of his, a pistol strapped on each leg and a rifle slung over his shoulder. There was a moment where they stared at each other, it was the first time they had looked each other in the eye in nearly a week.

Before the moment could mature, Yuffie went running between them towards her own room. "Don't just stand there! I bet something crazy's about to happen!" The teen grinned at them as she opened her door, "This is gonna be great!"

Shocked out of the moment, Ralena cast him one last glance then dived into her room to drop her book, grab her weapons and spot check her materia. When she came back out into the hall Vincent was already gone, and Yuffie was heading back out. The women ran alongside each other and were the last two to enter the bridge.

Cloud did a quick visual count then, without preamble said, "We're going to the Corel Reactor."

"Corel?" Barret asked, a little alarmed, "Why?"

"It's under attack." Cloud said, "According to Cait Sith the guards got a distress signal off, and they're fighting an 'unknown invading force' now. Even with the ShinRa combatants to offer support and the reactor in lockdown, it doesn't seem like they will last long."

"They can't handle it?" Cid asked suspiciously.

"ShinRa will take _at least_ ninety minutes to get there given the speed of the choppers at the Del Sol base," Cait Sith supplied, "We happen to be nearby and will be there in about fifteen minutes."

Barret grunted in disapproval, "You'd think they have more guards near their reactors at this point."

"They did," Cloud said, "Otherwise they would already be wiped out. If we don't get in there and stop the reactor from blowing, then we're pretty sure the town will be in big trouble." It was generally a safe distance from the town, but that didn't include the possibility of shockwaves setting off landslides and radiation leaks. "It's a risk, but Cait thinks we can at least shut it down and be out of there before the ShinRa show up with any notable force."

"Alright," Barret grunted, "As long as we're doing this for North Corel and not the ShinRa." Yes, he wanted the Mako Reactors shut down, but he never intended for there to be civilian casualties.

"It will also give us eyes on this new faction," Vincent offered. Then they would finally have some hard evidence to work with.

"Does anyone want out of this?" When he got no replies to this, Cloud seemed to breathe a slight sigh of relief. "Good," he said, "When we get there we're splitting up into three teams. Cait Sith is familiar with Mako Reactors, and Cid knows enough to help with little explanation. Barret, you can provide heavy fire support and keep them free to do their work. So Blue team is Cid, Cait Sith and Barret, you three will secure the control room and do what you can to prevent the reactor from exploding. I don't care if it's shut down or what, we just don't want it to explode. If you have access to security screens from there then you can also help make battlefield calls.

"According to Cait Sith the pumps and the core are the two places most likely to either result in catastrophic failure and have assets that someone might want to steal. Gold team is me, Tifa and Yuffie, we're going to head to the pumping stations near the bottom of the central chamber. Red team is Vincent, Ralena and Red XIII-" Cloud paused as more than a few pointed looks and groans made themselves known. "Shut up it's easy to remember that way. Red team is going to head towards the core, which is in the middle of the same chamber. Remember the primary goal is not let the reactor explode." He looked over his shoulder, "Conners! What's our E.T.A.?"

"About ten minutes, sir!"

"Right, the spare terminals there have the plans on them, Cait will show us where we need to go. Get comms and prep what you think you need."

Fortunately, it seemed like the layout of the reactor was pretty straight forward. The core was pretty much on top of the pumping stations in a vast central chamber so the chances were good that the two teams would be able to see each other in case help was required.

Ralena fumbled with the earpiece they would use for comms, they had gone over them once before weeks ago, but had not had any real cause to use them until now. Vincent appeared next to her and held out his hand offering to take it from her. Silently she nodded and handed it to him.

He turned the device on then moved her hair and hooked it over her ear. She stiffened slightly at the contact. "Are we okay?" he asked quietly.

Green eyes met red for a moment then looked away. "For this? Yes." Compared to putting aside her fear to fight against Jenova in the crater, her discomfort around Vincent was nothing.

"And otherwise?" This time when she looked at him she held his eye, his voice was soft. He was honestly concerned and he really did care, she had no doubt about that.

For now, maybe that would be enough.

She still felt flutters uncertainty and other conflicting emotions as she looked into his crimson eyes, but it wasn't necessary to hide from him anymore. "Soon, probably" she said quietly, "Thank you… for the sheet music."

Their conversation was cut short as a quick test of the comms was done before the final approach.

****

Avalanche lowered themselves down onto a platform on the edge of the chasm that surrounded the Mako Reactor. Once everyone was solidly on the ground, they made a beeline across the bridge. The thick metal front door of the reactor hung askew a large, smoking hole in it, where the locking bolt would have been, Vincent declared it the likely work of ecplosives. They cautiously moved into the large corridor, built that way to accommodate any large equipment that needed to be brought in. When they were barely ten feet in, they noticed the first obvious signs on combat. Bullet holes pockmarked the walls alongside scorch marks and the broken corpse of a ShinRa combatant.

The combatants were another ShinRa project, some muscular humanoid monster with clawed feet that was stuffed into a form fitting body suit with metal devices strapped to their heads and hands. There were rumors that the combatants used to be human, perhaps people who the SOLDIER process did not quite work for, but there was little time for speculation now. This one appeared to have been crushed, its tear-resistant blue wrapping was mostly intact, if stained with blood, though it did little to hide the mangled condition of the corpse. The metal casings that housed its weapons on its arms were also crushed.

"What could have done such a thing?" Tifa breathed.

"I can think of a few monsters," Ralena answered quickly. "But nothing that lives around here _and_ would fit down this hall." The group continued forward, at the first junction the Blue Team peeled off to find the control room.

As Cid, Barret and Cait Sith made their way down a narrower hall, they noticed that these halls had less damage. "Do you think they managed to hole up in there?"

Cid turned the corner to look down the last hall where the door to the control room was. His head whipped back around and he clenched the haft of his halberd, "Doesn't look like it worked for long…" he said quietly.

"Is it occupied?" Cait Sith asked. Cid glared and put his finger over his lips then tapped his ear, trying to listen. After several seconds, Cait Sith got down from his mog, "I'll sneak forward and tell you what's in there." Unlike the others, the robot's controller apparently hooked his speech directly into the earpieces. This allowed him to speak freely, without concern for the enemy hearing him, even if it was a little disconcerting for Cid and Barret to hear him without seeing him talk.

Near the end of the hall, the door to the room had been wrenched open, as though by the hands of some large creature. Some puddled blood was pooling near the door and was just visible in the hallway.

The toy cat made its way forward, its plushie padded feet landing silently on the ground. When he got next to the doorway, Cait Sith peaked into the room. "You're, not gonna believe what we got here…" he muttered.

****

"Is it gremlins?" Cloud asked.

"How did you-" came Cait Sith's surprised voice.

"Yeah," Cloud said, "We just found two dead ones next to a several ShinRa combatants."

"We fought these in the crater," Nanaki commented

"But it looks a little… different," Tifa said. Gremlins were creatures with spindly legs and arms poking out of a mass of long pale green hair. They were about three feet tall, their bat-like faces and ears also peeked out from the fur, and had long sharp teeth.

With a strange feeling creeping up on her, Ralena focused her glowing eyes at the monstrous corpse. She put her hand near it, but withdrew an inch before she touched it. "I don't think they felt like Jenova back then."

"How potent?" Vincent asked, concerned.

She swallowed and touched the arm of the creature, closing her eyes. "About the same as the 'clones.' but a different… flavor somehow."

"All signs point to Sephiroth," Yuffie said dryly.

Ralena's eyes brightened as she looked around, as if trying to see though the walls. "I don't think he's here," The redhead clarified, "but I can't be sure. This place is way bigger than my range." She did not know how to explain it, but she felt the beacon of control was far away… or hidden.

"Just be careful," Cloud said, gesturing to the holes in the blood soaked, blue body suits of the mutant ShinRa security, "Some of those wounds are from guns, so it's not just monsters we're looking at."

***

"I can confirm that," Cait Sith replied to Cloud, "I have three gremlins and what looks like a ShinRa Trooper in cold weather camo. I gotta say, it's really ugly in here, the techs didn't stand a chance." He looked back at Cid and Barret. "I'll draw them out, we don't want to damage the equipment."

"Roger that," whispered Cid into his comm as he moved to the other side of the opening into the hall. When they were all in position, Cait Sith opened with an area _Slow_ spell. Then a precision Bio spell on one of the gremlins before running down the hall and scooting around behind Barret.

Once the vicious little furballs were out in the hall Barret laid down a hail of bullets finishing off two before the trooper opened up with his own gun. As the last gremlin closed on Barret he pulled back around the corner and the large, round, white fist of the mog came down upon it and it was finished off with a few point blank shots.

Cid kept peeking around the corner and as soon as he heard the trooper begin to reload he charged forward, attacking with his halberd. Surprisingly, the trooper dodged a few attacks before the three managed to take him down.

"Was it just me," Cid asked, "or did he seem faster than he should be?"

Barret crouched down, pulled down the man's scarf and removed his helmet. "Shit, he looks pale as all hell." It wasn't just his skin either, the man's hair was mostly white and streaked with brown.

Cait Sith pulled back and an eyelid and almost let go in surprise. "His pupils are like a cat's… Are all of the attackers infused with Jenova Cells? And how?"

"Why not?" Cid asked, "I mean… he's got the actual Jenova with 'im, doesn't he?"

Cait Sith bit his thumb, shaking his head. "I… I don't know enough about it, but it shouldn't be possible for someone to be this far changed in two months, and there were no troopers in the crater..." He must be missing something.

***

"I'm sorry Cait, can you save the speculation for later?" Cloud said, "I'm trying to listen for hostiles."

By now Cloud and Vincent's teams had split up. When they found the stairwell. The Gold team headed down and the Red, up. As they passed several bodies at the bottom of the stairs, a hand reached out and grabbed Tifa's ankle and she almost kicked the fallen security guard in the head.

"Yuffie," Cloud said quietly, "Heal him up." Happy to oblige, the teen did as she was told. The team had discussed it on the way in, if they found any surviving human troops, they would heal them up enough to walk and send them out. They would use lies of omission to imply that they were a special team called in by the company. Cloud's SOLDIER uniform certainly helped sell the lie in this case. He asked the man what they had fought other than the gremlins. The security guard described a few large, purple humanoids that could barely fit down the ten foot tall corridors, and some men in cold weather trooper uniforms. He and the others had been retreating, when he was felled by the quick vicious balls of fur and claws . "We'll handle it from here, get out to safety."

As they walked the long hallway Cloud's eyes darted around the doorways and intersections, trying to map out terrain and listen to all of the noises around him. Amongst the steady rhythmic sounds of the machinery there was bound to be some noise that would give away their enemies.

It was not long before they came out into the central section of the reactor. It was a large, mostly open space with grated catwalks that surrounded a large apparatus in the middle that stretched high above them and deep down into the ground. In a few places around the perimeter, stairs or ladders went between the various levels. The chamber was filled with piping, conduits and other various bits of equipment. Most of them were fastened to the walls, but occasionally a cluster of them would turn away from the wall and go over the open air of the space towards the structure in the middle. Six large pipes, easily ten feet in diameter went straight up like pillars around the edges of the room and were numbered one through six. Before them was a large, wide platform occupied by crates, control consoles and machinery that none present could identify. In addition, Cloud could see vicious, hairy gremlins ambling about as if they were waiting for something to happen.

The smell of Mako was thick enough that they could almost taste it. A kind of heady, acrid smell that left with a cooling sensation like mint. A see through barrier below made it possible to see down into the bright green Lifestream glowing beneath them. They would not have realized that the barrier was even there had it not been for the splatter and silhouettes of bodies that must have been knocked off of the catwalks in the previous fight.

Close to thirty feet above Cloud, the Red team stalked along the metal platforms. In the lead, Nanaki stopped briefly and gestured with his head to where he saw the other team below. Vincent gestured to a set of stairs that went up and lead to a catwalk that acted as a bridge to the core, then he touched his ear. Nanaki's ears swiveled for a moment before they found the sound that the man had indicated, movement coming from the center column.

As they moved around for another angle, Ralena was grateful for the wordless communication, what radiation shielding this place had helped her keep focus, but her ears were full of white noise due to their proximity to so much raw Mako. The heavy sound of metal on metal pierced through the audible fog and she pointed to her Barrier Materia. Vincent nodded as he moved ahead of her then crouched down, aiming his rifle up at an angle to shoot at something she couldn't see yet. As the barrier's settled into place he whispered into his comm. "Looks like we have one gigas, two humans and a number of gremlins. They seem to be removing something."

"Copy that," Cloud replied just as quietly, "We only see one person in a doorway and bunch of those furballs between us and him. We can't get closer without alerting them. But, there's some noise coming from inside the room."

"I've got the security cameras," Cait Sith's voice said, gratingly loud since he didn't have to whisper like the past two speakers. "Red team: it looks like they're taking the Materia out of the condensing tanks. Gold, you also have two humans and a Gigas. I'm not sure what your group is doing, the gigas is blocking my view, just don't break open any of those pipes unless you want a Mako shower."

Vincent lined up his rifle, waiting for a clear shot on the giant. A skittering sound came from his right and Nanaki leapt over him and pounced on a gremlin they had not seen among a cluster of barrels nearby. The sound caused the gigas to perk up and Vincent fired. The gunman glared when he realized he miscalculated the target's movement and caught it in the thick muscle of its shoulder.

At the sound of the gunshot above them Tifa and Cloud rushed forward. The blonde man swung his sword into a small cluster of gremlins on one side while the brawler focused on bringing down two on the other side of the platform. A mass of fire flew past them and impacted the trooper, knocking him down and filling the doorway with flames. Yuffie's shuriken then flew out and finished off one of the creatures that had been knocked down from Cloud's initial attack.

Cloud and Tifa pulled close enough to cover each other's backs as the masses of hair and teeth moved in on them. The first to approach Cloud was cleaved in two by his massive sword, with surprising speed he shifted his grip, and cut sideways, slamming it into two more gremlins, killing at least one of them.

The critters may have been a flurry of teeth and claws but Tifa was faster. She grabbed one by the arm, broke then limb, then threw it into another one as it tried to flank her. She kicked the knees out from another and swept the legs out from under a fourth. Her attacks were not as inherently deadly as Cloud's but she was able to cripple with nearly every strike on the smaller creatures.

Those injured by Tifa were easy targets for Yuffie to finish off with either magic or her shuriken. Flying metal, ice and fire followed almost every strike of Tifa's, ensuring that anything she knocked down would not be getting back up. The smell of filthy burning fur filled the air and Tifa coughed out a protest after several seconds, "Ease up on the fire, the smell is making me gag."

"Shit," they heard Barret say over the comms. "We got company too." Back at the doorway to the control room the large man leveled his gun-arm and fired into the pack of gremlins coming down the hall.

"Can you close yourself in?" Cloud asked.

"No can do," Cait Sith said, "they broke the door on the way in."

A line of toy soldiers formed in front of Barret and he nodded in thanks to the toy for the cover, "Don' worry about us," he said, "We go this."

"Fire in the hole!" Cid called as both he and Barret threw dynamite and a grenade down the hall and ducked back into the room.

The boom was heard back in the central chamber, where the red team was not faring as well. In their encounter they were to ones to have been caught by surprise. They were caught at a T-junction on a more narrow catwalk, and had a small swarm of gremlins coming at them from two sides. Nanaki appeared as a mass of feral fur and claws, but his precision of movement could not be denied. The feline was tearing through the vicious beasts on the outer walkway while Ralena was holding off a small mob that came from the center column. As usual, her movements were fluid and graceful, but she was limited in her technique. The gremlins were shorter than the railing, which she had to avoid striking with her blades. Vincent was behind both of the fighters, having switched to his pistols to pick off any of the creatures that tried to take advantage of any lapses in their defenses.

A bullet pinged off of the fencer's shield, leaving cracks in the magical barrier. Vincent changed position and took aim at the trooper across the gap and fired. The target turned enough for the bullet to deflect off of his helmet, a large crack formed in it as the man moved to duck behind a crate. Vincent's lip curled at another missed shot. "The troopers are faster than a normal human," he said into the comms. They needed to clear as many of these smaller creatures as possible before the gigas finished whatever it was doing. Vincent had seen it carry some of the condensing pods around the other side, likely guided by the other trooper to complete the mission, but he assumed that it would be back. It would be a nightmare to fight all of the smaller creatures at the same time.

"I'm going to clear Nanaki," Vincent said, if they had only one approach to worry about then it would be safer for all of them. Ralena responded with a quick confirmation and her movements changed to becoming strictly defensive. He took what cover he could find and turned towards Nanaki and focused his mana. The shadows around him darkened and were suddenly spotted with orange flame that lit stone columns that did not used to be there. A large skeletal hand reached out of the shadows, the forearm was covered with a robe that seemed to be a part of the darkness itself. The fires illuminated a skull that rested beneath a hood. Rasping, chanting whispers sounded within the shadows and it reached out. Tendrils of darkness wrapped around the gremlins on the outer catwalk, one by one changing their forms. They squealed as any combination of effects took them. Frog, Mini, Sleep, Poison, Confusion, to name a few.

The Hades summon took up a fair amount of concentration, fortunately for Vincent, reloading took almost no mental effort at all, and half of his targets were transformed by the time he was done, Nanaki was quick to dispatch those that had been weakened so that they would not recover. They heard a gunshot, a sound like breaking ice and a curse.

As Ralena's barrier shattered, she rapidly took a few steps back as nearly half a dozen gremlins closed in to take advantage of her lowered defenses. Her blades moved quickly in front of her, parrying and deflecting the multitude of claws that reached for her. A few gunshots sounded from behind and in front of her. A bullet cut through her left arm and she winced in pain, leaving her open enough for several claws to cut into her legs. Nanaki rushed up on one side, sporting a few superficial injuries of his own. Ralena took an instant to gather herself then dove back towards the mob now that the odds were better.

Another boom sounded in their ears, this one coming from below, "Careful of the red barrels!" Tifa shouted into the comms. The brunette jumped back from the flaming barrel and several skittering, burning gremlins.

"Sorry!" Yuffie said back, quickly deciding that fire magic might have been a bad choice for this fight. She hear a sound to her right and quickly rolled away as one of the critters jumped down on her from the bottom of a catwalk. "Ikkenai!" the shinobi cried in alarm, "they climb like spiders!"

The teen jumped back, closer to Tifa and cast an area _Ice_ spell on the multiple gremlins she now saw on the underside of the walkway, temporarily freezing them to the surface.

Leaving the women to clear the gremlins, Cloud found himself again using his sword as a bullet shield against the trooper who leveled his gun at him. He moved forward on the trooper, drawing the fire away from the women before leaping into the air and coming down on the man with the Buster Sword. The troop shielded himself with his gun, and the weapon shattered on impact. "Why are you here?" He asked, forcing the man down to the ground, "What does Sephiroth want?"

The man suddenly smirked, the expression seemed out of place on his face. "If you want to know so badly, why don't you join me, Cloud?"

Blue eyes widened for a second, it was not Sephiroth, at least in body. The man was too short, and the voice was wrong, but the evil smirk and the manner in which he spoke told Cloud who he was talking to. "Found yourself a new puppet?" Cloud said through gritted teeth, as he swung his sword down again.

The trooper rolled backward, avoiding the blow then drew a sword that had been strapped to his back. "Are you jealous?"

Cloud rushed in and locked blades with the other man, "Don't confuse pity for jealousy." He shoved the man back again and the possessed figure recovered quickly. Cloud smiled back, Sephiroth may be controlling this man, but it looked like the body could not move as fast as the silvered haired man himself.

****

"Shit, is this really happening?" Barret asked from his spot by the control room door. "Is that bastard possessing people now?"

"Forget that and help me hold the fucking door!" Cid yelled, before throwing another bolt of lightning down the hallway.

"Don' worry, I got this," Barret said, bringing forth the summon he had been given for this purpose. "Just cover me for another second." The sounds of pistons filled the hall and pair of a large metal columns landed on either end of the corridor. A third, wider column stepped in, this was the base of huge automaton with a body like a castle. He always thought it was strange the way that space seemed warped to accommodate a summon, because they never seemed to be any smaller to him. Barret smiled as beams of light shot out from castle killing several gremlins, Alexander was better than any roadblock.

"Cait," Vincent asked over the comms, "Do you have eyes on the missing contacts?"

"Hold on, I'm just getting back to the monitors."

"We're swamped up here," Ralena said, "We'll need the warning." The beginning of a healing chant left her lips, but she found herself dodging as she saw the trooper leveling his gun at her again, hoping that her rapid change in movement would throw off his aim. She heard the bullet ping off of the railing then went back to casting, healing herself and Nanaki. Somewhat refreshed, she jumped up, stepping on the railing then launched herself over the gap at the enemy gunman. Vincent had been unable to get a clean shot on the man and several gremlins had already been casualties of his efforts to take him out.

Through a hole in his cracked helmet she saw the vertical slit pupils in one blue eye dilate in surprise. He backed away from where she landed. She rushed him and managed to force him back several more steps and away from his cover.

"Shit!" Cait Sith's voice yelled, "Ralena, look out!"

The redhead didn't dodge so much as roll with the strike as another man with a blade came out from behind a set of pipes. A thin slice went up her hip and she tumbled into some small crates, ending up on her back with her left hand devoid of her side sword that clattered nearby. With no time to even curse she brought up her dagger to parry the sword, she managed it for the first blow and a second, heavier strike that left her fingers feeling numb. Behind the man with the sword, the other trooper leveled his gun at her. Her eyes lit up as she tried to force fear into them.

Uncertainty and hesitation filled the one face she could see, a pulse of green went through the man's eye.

Vincent raised his pistol, having just finished reloading for a second time. In the moment's hesitation he leveled it at the troop with the gun and fired. Crimson blossomed in the man's scarf, marking a shot straight through his neck and he stumbled back before falling over. Vincent fired twice more, forcing the swordsman to take cover and move away from Ralena so that she could retrieve her dropped sword.

Nanaki had just managed to clear the walkway, several of the furballs had climbed around beneath the catwalk where he could not attack them. The feline saw that they were making their way towards Vincent, but a quick glance told the feline that the gunman was ready for them. Looking back towards the center, Nanaki ran forward, preparing to intercept the gigas he saw coming around to join the swordsman Ralena was fighting.

***

"We're clear in the control room," came Cid's voice, "But the Highwind called, we got a bogey coming in!"

Yuffie looked at a camera she had spotted earlier, "ShinRa's here already!?"

"No! The crew says it's --" His voice was drowned out by the sounds of crunching and screaming metal that filled the central chamber. Every combatant stopped and looked up at the sunlight pouring in as a hole was ripped into the side of the structure. Giant claws of black metal grabbed the walls and pulled it further open. A face at least the size of a car and shaped like a dragon's peered in. A red orb glowed in its chest and another pair of claws grabbed the opening at the bottom and began to push it open further. The large pipe labeled with a number four buckled and cracked open, spilling green glowing liquid that poured down the side and sloshed across the glass floor of the chamber.

Red XIII's voice was the first to come over the comms, "Well… fuck."

"What is that thing!?" Yuffie breathed in shock.

Vincent knew it, even if he had no idea what it looked like before. Chaos had been prodding at the edges on the edges of his consciousness since they found the Jenova infected gremlins. Now the entity was practically shouting at him. Only one word managed to leave his lips, "Weapon."

Ralena starred, wide eyed at the colossal creature. Its presence forced images into her mind and she found her mouth moving without her will, "_And thus, to destroy the children of calamity, Gaea gave birth to the Weapons and wept._"

Surprisingly, the first things to move against the weapon was the gigas near the red team, and another one on a higher platform. They grabbed several pieces of machinery and barrels and threw them at the Weapon as if they had a chance of damaging something so large.

"Shut down pump four!" Yelled Cid through the comms, "If we don't they'll be pickled in Mako!"

"I'm trying!" Cait Sith replied, "We still have to drain the pipes too."

"Then fucking do it! I'll start on pump 3!"

Barret had moved to watching the security monitors, as gremlins went climbing up the walls like a mass of spiders to swarm the Weapon. "How many of those little bastards were hiding here? Wait… what's that?" There were other creatures nested against the back side of the columns where they had been unmoving and unnoticed until now. Peeling off the sides of the column and taking flight were several wind wings, slim dragon-like beasts a little taller than humans. The creatures were carrying boxes and condensing chambers and flew up to make their way out passed the Weapon. "Shit! Vincent we got fliers takin' off with the goods!"

Moving up a flight of stairs to a better vantage point, Vincent pulled up his rifle and aimed for one of the flying beasts. At this distance he wasn't sure, but he thought they looked bigger than the ones they had fought in the crater. As the Weapon grabbed and crushed another one of them, Vincent tracked a scaled beast with his rifle and shot it the back of the head and it plummeted.

The dead beast landed hard on a console not far from Cloud, sparks flew and there was a loud electrical pop before its lifeless corpse slid off and over the railing and into the spilling Mako below. Cloud rushed up on the trooper he had been fighting and knocked the sword out of the man's hands, "It's not like you to be so easily distracted, Sephiroth."

"You're mistaken."

Cloud's eyes went wide, the voice had come from behind him. Almost too late he realized that the man he had been fighting now looked slightly dazed. He spun quickly as the second trooper Cait Sith mentioned earlier swung a blade at him. He gritted his teeth in pain as the sword cut against his waist. The new opponent charged in on him and struck again, forcing Cloud on the defensive. "Don't tell me its-"

"-over already." The previous trooper moved in and Cloud cursed as he realized that Sephiroth was able to flip his control back and forth between the two puppets. After several exchanges, Cloud tried to strike at the weaker opponent when Sephiroth switched, but the follow up strike was always too fast, and it seemed that the troops were proficient enough to press on him even when under their own control.

"Cloud!" Tifa called out, "Yuffie, can you finish these?"

"I got this!" Yuffie grinned, "Go!"

Tifa made a beeline over to the sword fight to help Cloud. Halfway there a barrel took her legs out from under her. Landing on her back, mahogany brown eyes went wide and she rolled, dodging a crate that the gigas tried to crush her with. She quickly got into a crouch and then rolled between the beasts legs. Once on the other side she tried to kick out one of its knees. The grunt told her she had caused pain, but it was not nearly the amount of damage she had hoped for.

Behind Tifa, Yuffie had built a layer of ice on the ground around her, and the gremlins that tried to get to her scrambled about. "Now it's show time!" she said with a grin. The teen clapped her hands together and chanted, ending with the name of her summon, "_Detekuru,_ Leviathan!" The surface of the ice rippled like water and the sea serpent burst forth from the surface of it and circled Yuffie before striking out at her smaller foes like a viper, crushing each in a single bite.

***

Nanaki and Ralena had a trooper and a gigas between them. Ralena did not have the an opportunity to get to the feline's position and if he came to her it would leave a path open to Vincent. The cat dodged the gigas' fist and latched onto its forearm with his teeth, letting go just in time to avoid being grabbed by the giant.

Ralena was cautiously trading strikes and parries with the swordsman. Both of them were sporting injuries, but at the moment she could not let down her guard in order to cast a healing spell yet. She should have finished him off by now, but when the Weapon showed up it messed with her senses. Her powers were derived from the Cetra, linked back to the planet just like the Weapon, its overwhelming presence made it hard for her to breathe.

She winced at another cut, there was no way that this fight was going to end before the Dance of Kali took her. She just had to delay it long enough. _"Focus on the moment_," Vincent had told her after they fought each other in their frenzy, explaining how he tried to put off his own limit break. _ "Just think of each strike, each single action and dedicate everything to it_." She took a deep breath and moved in on her target once again.

Meanwhile, Vincent was doing his best to take out, or cripple as many of the fliers as he could. At this point, he was certain that all of the other creature that Sephiroth had sent would be given up for lost. Taking out the wind wings now was the only thing he could do that could hurt the enemy. He glanced back at Nanaki and Ralena a few times, he had to trust that they could handle themselves and that they would ask for his help when they needed it.

The Weapon reached in further and pulled the walls open more. The pipes labeled "3" and "5" were broken open, on one side of it gremlins were swept back down into the chamber. A bright beam of light shot from the weapon's mouth and incinerated a gigas that had been throwing exploding barrels at it.

As Mako spewed out of the number five pipe, Barret came out into a higher platform nearest the control room, his hands together for another summon. The blue-white woman of ice floated in front of him before flying towards the damage, attempting to seal up leaking pipes with ice. Even Shiva was forced to dodge as the Weapon moved and knocked loose some support beams.

"Cloud, Look out!" the gun armed man yelled.

Cloud didn't look up, he just moved as the beam landed, crushing one of his opponents and warping the platform he stood upon. "Close one," the man taunted, "Getting dangerous, isn't it?" Cloud bared his teeth and moved in for another strike.

Yuffie, having finished off the gremlins on their level, moved to heal her teammates. The injuries on the blonde were obvious, multiple blade wounds a few looked deep. By comparison Tifa was strongly favoring her right leg and was currently just dodging the gigas. As the soothing sensation fell over Tifa, she rushed in on her opponent, landing a rapid combination of attacks. When she pulled back Yuffie's weapon came flying passed and struck the gigas. Tifa grinned, now that she had some backup to give her a little breathing room, they would make short work of this giant.

Up above, Ralena managed to dispatch the trooper with thrust of her sword and an arterial slice of her dagger. As she let the body drop, a backhand from the giant came around and struck her. The pain blossomed in her shoulder and the side of her head, and the world went fuzzy for a moment. As Ralena landed on the ground, a ball of fire hit the gigas from Vincent and Nanaki got his teeth into its shoulder.

The corner of her mouth curled up into a smirk, and she pulled herself up as the red light began to emanate from her body. Ralena grinned madly as she dove in for a strike, cutting a muscle on the arm, dangerously close to Nanaki's own paws. She laughed and spun, running her dagger down its side before it moved away. She'd fought a gigas before, but this one was not a friend. This one she could kill. Besides, it didn't even have lightning, how tough could it b-

She almost evaded a fist that came at her, it grazed her but the pain was still significant. Green light flowed around her, and the pain went away. She grit her teeth in frustration at the healing magic cast by her feline friend. How did he expect her to feel _alive_ if he took away the pain?

With the full focus of Nanaki, Vincent and a frenzied Ralena, the gigas did not last much longer. "Come on, let's go!" Nanaki shouted, making sure he caught her eye, before starting back across the catwalk to the outer wall.

Yes… go. This enemy was dead, but there were still more, more to fight, she couldn't stop yet, couldn't leave now. Not when there was more.

Ralena rushed passed Nanaki, then Vincent. Instead of heading to the exit, she ran up another flight of stairs, slashing violently into a cluster of gremlins, some of them getting tossed over the side. Nanaki yelled for her, but she just ran down the catwalk, building momentum before she leapt off the side, landing on a railing she swung at one of the stray wind wings that still remained. Then launched herself further up to another level above her.

"Shit!" Barret cursed from his position, "Is she going where I think she is?"

Vincent's mind scrambled, he had to think, had to do something. He could not get close to her without losing control of himself. Nor could he impede her with a slow or stop spell. Even if he had the materia on him, to do anything to her at the speed she was moving would only cause her to fall into the pit below.

"Ralena, you can't attack that thing!"

She wasn't sure who said it, her only response was a manic chuckle they could hear through the comms. Her vision narrowed, only that path to her opponent mattered. In these frenzied moments she was perfectly aware of her body's capabilities and somehow was able to process all of the surfaces she could land on. She could get there. Burning blood rushed through her veins and her skin was hot. She had to try and get her blades into it. She wanted to know the color of its blood, it was sure to look good on her.

"Dammit…" Cloud grunted through clenched teeth

"heh, she's gotten daring, hasn't she?" the Sephiroth possessed trooper said.

"Yeah," Cloud glared at the puppet, "and I don't have time for your shit right now!" He sliced into his opponent, taking advantage of the fact that the Sephiroth possessed trooper actually looked up at his glowing comrade leaping at the Weapon. Shocked by the strike, the body was unable to defend and Cloud pushed further, slicing into the trooper even after the unnatural glow left the man's eyes.

"We have to go!" Tifa shouted. Despite the Blue team's best efforts, he could see the Mako beneath them steadily rising, it wouldn't be too long before it came through the grating on their level

He ran over to Tifa and Yuffie and saw that their most direct exit had been destroyed by falling metal. The women were standing by some crates under another catwalk and he jumped on top, quickly giving them a boost up to the next level, before following himself. They had a choice to make, either way, to get out they had to get closer to the huge Weapon. Either by getting higher, or going through the middle. "Let's go higher," Yuffie said, "If we get close enough, maybe we can drag Ralena out."

Cloud nodded to the teen, he could see the fear in her eyes and he had no doubt that it reflected his own, but they would be damned if they would leave one of their own, crazed or not, to fight something like that.

****

"Nanaki! Cover me!" Vincent yelled, with little else to do, he stuck to the higher caliber rifle, hoping that the heavier bullets would not get thrown off too much by the winds kicked up by the Weapon's wings. Now that it had further opened up the walls he could see that it had two arms and four legs. His eyes scanned it for a weak spot, the creature was larger than a 5 story building, so every shot had to be worth it. How he missed his Cerberus right now. The hefty caliber of his old, signature weapon would have been well suited to this, but it was not to be found in the ShinRa manor before they left. Vincent had no expectations of killing the Weapon, at least not on this battlefield, but maybe they could pester it into leaving.

He saw the blur of red strike against the creature, who seemed to be focused on crushing the Jenova infected creatures, and reaching for the number six pipe. It turned to regard her as she struck it with a lightning spell. Compared to the gremlins she was getting passed its defenses. Desperate to get its attention away from her, Vincent shot multiple times towards the creature's face.

The Weapon lifted one hand to cover its face and Ralena launched herself off of a cluster of conduits, and came at it from the other side. Faster than it had moved so far it lifted the other hand and swatted her down like a fly.

Vincent saw the red streak of light go flying across the chamber into the metal sheeting around the central column which buckled under the impact. He stared in mute disbelief and moments later he realized that she had not yet emerged from the wreckage and the red glow from her limit break had faded.

He leapt across several catwalks and pipes, completely unfazed by the danger a misstep might bring. The pounding in his chest began to drown out everything. In moments he landed near where she had fallen. Distantly he heard Nanaki yell something.

His vision lost all color as he saw her in the wreckage, only the shock of her red hair and blood from her injuries were not cast in grey. Unmoving, she lay in a crumpled mass of metal, dented by her form. The WEAPON flapped its wings and a great gust of wind, blew his cloak and hair violently.

The voice of Cloud came in through his ear, "Vincent, is she alright?"

She wasn't moving.

She who wasn't concerned about his monstrous forms. Who understood his silent responses. Who liked her coffee so strong, just smelling it could wake the dead.

"Vincent, can you hear me!?" The voice was in his ear, but it sounded far away.

There was a sound like cracking glass coming from his pocket. The whites of his eyes turned yellow.

"VINCENT!"

He began to get the sensation of touch from his cloak which would have been strange had he the inkling to register anything other than what his eyes were telling him. The entity inside of him spread rapidly from the inside out. The black from his left hand crawled across his skin like smoke beneath his clothes. His hair became horns and hands changed into claws.

The Weapon, that thing, had hurt her.

Nanaki saw the cloak split and change into the form of wings, his boots shaped themselves into metal hoof-like feet. Vincent had the vague acknowledgement of more yelling.

It was possible it had even killed her.

Crimson eyes narrowed as the yellow seeped into the irises.

For that it would be punished.

*****

"Holy shit!" Barret yelled from his isolated platform, "He is pissed!"

"Can anyone see if Ral's ok?" Cloud shouted, panting as his group tried to navigate their way up to where she was.

"I am almost to her," Nanaki said, leaping over a broken gap in a walkway.

The black winged demon that was once Vincent flew through the air, crippling what was left of the wind wings around the Weapon and burning them to ash with dark flames. Chaos was of two minds. It wanted to incinerate all of the little Jenova bugs, but it also felt its host's desire to kill the Weapon. It smiled when it saw several off the disgusting little furballs on the Weapon's back. Two birds, one Satan Slam.

****

Vincent shouted mindlessly as he tumbled down the dark tunnel, the powerful winds pushing him further and further away from the physical world. Gusts tossed debris along with him as he rolled along. He landed roughly, lying flat on the ground, his red cloak whipping above him.

A huge rock came sailing towards him, but before it struck a ball of fire smashed it into tiny rocks with glowing green flecks. He paid no attention as Ulster ran up to his side and again unleashed his beast flare scattering more of the debris caused by Chaos. A large hand grabbed him by the back of his cloak, and Talos put himself in the front, laying Vincent down behind him and standing like a bastion against the hurricane force winds that pushed them away from the portal to his body.

The wind changed direction and nearly took Vincent with it, but Slasher, with a sound like a long-suffering sigh, grabbed a hold of his collar so that he would not be lost. Vincent barely noticed the man-handling as he screamed at the world, at everything and nothing.

There was nothing for him to do, nothing he could do. He failed.

Vincent didn't see the point, the real threat was Sephiroth using Jenova anyway, he should just let Chaos be to fulfill its purpose.

*****

The Weapon roared as a burst of dark flame erupted from its back, everyone in the reactor could feel the building shake and their ears suffered from the volume of it. "I'm here," Nanaki's voice came through when the sound subsided, "She is alive, if barely."

"I'm coming to help!" Yuffie shouted, if the empath was so badly injured, they would have to do point healing first, which took more time, and by the looks of the reactor that was something they didn't have much of.

"Blue team," Cloud said, "get the hell outta here!"

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" came Cid's voice, "We are not leaving you! Besides we're not done with shutting down the reactor yet!"

"Barret!" Cloud called, "You have until they finish to have Shiva build us some ice bridges. It's the only option we have to run out of here! After that I want the rest of you out!"

"I hear ya!"

"Oh man, oh man, come on," Yuffie muttered after some time alongside Nanaki in healing the empath. The healing magic was working, but when you didn't know how severe the injuries were, it was best to take it slow. While the feline worked on her head, Yuffie gingerly lifted a bleeding arm, setting the broken bone then aimed the magic towards that. At least none of the metal was poking _through_ her.

It was hard to be patient, what with combat raging behind her and trying not to screw up at the same time. "It will be ok," Red XIII said soothingly, "She is almost there."

Relief spread through Yuffie as the redhead began to murmur and move slowly. Something about "holding chaos" and "terror curs" or something. Encouraged by this she sped up the rate of the healing. All at once Mako green eyes shot open and Ralena launched herself into a sitting position, immediately dizzy for her efforts. "Lie, still," Nanaki instructed, "just for a moment more."

She nodded mutely, but her eyes were glued to the winged black form that floated up in the air. It's posture was supremely confident, and it looked as though it were wide open for an attack. It used the least possible movement to avoid blasts from the Weapon

_Chaos_.

Vincent never told her its name, but it reverberated through her mind, bringing forth all of the little clues she had in her mind.

This time was different. It wasn't just the usual feeling that came with his limit break. He was a white-hot pinpoint of rage, a rage that shined through the primeval shadow that was wrapped around it.

She felt a pull, like it tried to sweep all of their spirits up into it. Despite her injuries, she felt a desire to go back into battle and completely destroy her enemies, whether that was the Weapon or Sephiroth's forces it did not matter.

"That should do!" Yuffie said sharply, snapping Ralena out of her spiraling thoughts. "Now let's go."

"But what about-"

"He's got wings!" Yuffie said, "and we got walkways that are falling apart!"

She nodded reluctantly, worry clearly displayed on her face, and followed the other two to where Tifa and Cloud were. As they moved Ralena spared glances back at Chaos and tried to call out to Vincent, but it was lost in the tremendous sound of the wind and breaking metal.

*****

In the swirling darkness that was Chaos, outside noises had barely cut through the din, his comrades yelling and in danger, still struggling to survive. Slasher gave his collar with a rough, emphatic tug. Pulling him up to standing and gesturing towards the way out in some strange attempt to bolster his resolve.

“You need to be a new us,” said the voice of his younger self. The Turk was leaned against the back of Talos like it was a wall and looked as if the world had always been this way. “We cannot wallow in the darkness anymore. You are not losing control, you are _giving it away_," he said with a measure of disappointment, "Take it back.”

Vincent couldn’t bring himself to use words, angry at himself for not planning for what had happened, for not having some tactic in his pocket that could save her. What good was his precious control if he could not protect his friends? Protect her? With no better target presented to him he slugged the image of his younger self. His target did little more than turn his head at the strike, “That won’t make you feel better.” He said looking back, “but you should listen closer for something that will.”

All at once it was as though the volume was turned down in his mind, and the sound of her screaming his name reached his ears. Eyes wide, he looked up, everyway was dark and the wind was constantly changing direction but he knew way back out. He knew where he had to go in order to take control.

"Well?" the Turk smiled, "What are you going to do?"

*****

A roar of pain was joined by one of triumph. The Weapon turned to fly off, and it looked like Chaos had every intent to follow. Panic gripped Ralena, what if Chaos chased after the Weapon and Vincent fought it alone? What if he died? What if he never turned back? What if he just _decided_ not to come back?

She screamed his name, not sure what would happen.

Chaos paused in its pursuit of its fleeing prey.

Before hope could set in, Ralena's world turned quickly as a massive section of pipe landed behind her, the platform she was running on jackknifed and she was flung through the air. She impacted against a collection of smaller, bound together pipes and managed to get a grip on them. She attempted to swing her legs, but found herself unable to contact any other part of the structure to push off of. She was hanging out over mostly open air. Since the Weapon had all but gutted the building the space beneath her full of twisted metal and Mako. She looked around her, and finding no safe spot to land, swallowed hard.

Adrenaline pumping, she was sure she could hold on for a while, but another explosion sounded nearby and the conduits she was holding onto broke away from their supports.

Everything went black as she was engulfed by something that impacted her and violently changed her momentum sideways. The darkness cushioned her as they came to an abrupt stop with the sound of crunching metal. The hard body that held her was covered in smooth hide and vaguely smelled like ash. There was another brief moment of rapid movement, and with it came light. Now in the air, the wings of Chaos were spread out and let the light in. They were high above the chasm and the reactor. Her eyes went wide as she took in the up close visage of Chaos. It's skin was a dark purple-grey with features reminiscent of Vincent's, but more demonic, marked with several raised lines, like cracks, that came down from the center of its yellow eyes and the corners of its mouth. It didn't look at her as they descended onto a ledge away from the torn open reactor.

When they landed, the dark leather-like wings surrounded them and gave way to red and started to sound like whipping fabric spiraling around. When she looked at Vincent, his flesh was now pale grey. There was such a look of fear and relief on his face, that it surprised her. "I'm OK," she said breathlessly, not knowing what else to do but answer his unasked question.

His lips parted, he seemed to want to speak but couldn't. It was as though his teeth were stuck together. His eyes flashed yellow and he clenched his jaw in frustration, showing fangs. The red fabric still warped around them, and she realized the shape and shade of it was still in flux. Wide, green eyes flickered between his, Chaos wasn't ready to go back just yet.

Her hand touched his face, "Chaos has a job to do," she swallowed nervously, "I'll wait here for you, Vincent. Just… don't go too far."

With reluctance he nodded, and backed away from her. Spirals of darker grey moved over his face and the shape changed back to that of Chaos, eyes glowed yellow and the wings came back. It barely spared her a glance, but she caught a glimpse of grinning fangs as it took off, returning to the reactor.

At least the Weapon was gone.

She looked around at the ledge she was on, and saw the walkway built to lead into reactor against the rock wall… twenty feet below. "Well, maybe I won't wait _here_," she muttered to herself.

***

"Looks like 'Lena's Clear!" Cid announced, "And we shut down anything that will cause a total failure, but not the Mako leaks!"

"You've done all you can," Cloud said as they made their way quickly, but cautiously across an ice bridge, "We'll meet you outside."

"Roger that," the pilot replied.

There was the sound of a bursting pipe above them and a glob of pure, undiluted Mako washed over the platform, and almost took Cloud with it. Tifa reacted quickly, diving for him, she grabbed his wrist and wrapped a knee around one of the supports for the railing. Yuffie was quick to grab the brawler's other arm and help pull up her and their leader.

Cloud was conscious, but glazed over blue eyes was a sure sign that he would not be moving of his own volition any time soon. "Yuffie! Help me with him!" Tifa said. Each woman got under an arm, the severity of the situation preventing them from noticing the slight burn from the Mako seeping through their clothes.

They barely made it ten more feet before something landed in front of them. Nanaki crouched defensively before the others, but held his attack.

Chaos regarded them critically, and narrowed its eyes for a moment at Cloud. In one swift motion it raised a hand and blasted something behind them and a few bits of swinging metal missed their heads. For a second, its eyes turned red and it looked at Tifa, then Cloud's wrist that she held. Then took off again.

"Oh, sure," Yuffie pouted sarcastically, "Carry Ralena out but leave us. Thanks, Vincent."

"He can't carry all of us," Nanaki said.

"Bahamut can." Tifa looked up after equipping Cloud's summon materia.

Yuffie paled a little, "We're gonna try _that_… with _Bahamut_?" Another pop of an explosion went off and the heat of it brushed her face. Her next words were clipped and rapid, "Yeah. Okay. Let's do it!"

As the rest of his host's comrades cleared the building on the back of a summon, Chaos was free to let loose. Bursts of black and green fire exploded on the remains of every single Calamity tainted body it could find. Not a single corpse or creature would escape him.

*****

By the time Ralena met the others on one of the platforms that ringed the chasm. Cait Sith had just finished dousing Cloud, Tifa and Yuffie with water magic in an attempt to wash off as much Mako as he could, and was giving them some kind of salve that he had stored inside of his mog.

The occasional pop of a small explosion could still be heard from within the reactor, echoing off of the mountains around them. After a quick check that everyone was okay she turned anxiously to watch the building, waiting for Vincent to come out. She stretched her senses forward, but only vaguely got the sense of Chaos. After several agonizing minutes, they saw the dark shape come flying up out of the gaping hole left by the Weapon.

The great black-winged creature landed behind them, and they all turned to see it. Ralena tried to quell the twisting uncertainty in her gut. It looked at all of them before settling its eyes on her, the whole time it had a predatorial grin, the behemoth that got the chocobo. The wings wrapped around itself, then became a whirling mass of red fabric, before settling backdown as Vincent's cloak. He stood there for a second, crimson eyes half closed, before he swayed then collapsed.

Battle trained speed and instincts had Ralena and Barret at his side fast enough that the gunman didn't land face first on the ground. One hand supporting him by the shoulder, Ralena reached down and grabbed the exposed skin of his arm and closed her eyes for a few seconds, worry etched on her face. "Thank goodness," she breathed, opening green eyes.

"What is it?" Barret asked, concerned.

"Chaos, is asleep again… I was worried it wouldn't-" She swallowed hard and hugged the unconscious man against her as though he might disappear, "He's ok… he'll be ok."

****

"Vincent, did you hear me?"

A hand waved in front of his face and he looked up from the book at Aerith. They were in the library in Costa Del Sol, researching the temple of the ancients. "Sorry, no." What was he reading? He looked down at the book in his hands and saw the image of an ancient stone etching that looked like a human with bat wings. There were other strange details on the being, but it was hard to tell if it was from the beings features, the style of artwork, or the damage it had suffered.

She smiled at him, "Maybe you just need to take a break."

A slight smirk was hidden behind his collar, "ShinRa revolves around paperwork. This is nothing." He spotted Ralena moving through the stacks, the redhead was looking through books, probably trying to find something about monster biology.

Sensing that he might prefer the quiet, Aerith let him get back to his reading. For some reason unknown to him, Vincent had a hard time concentrating, like his mind just couldn't register the words he was reading. He was trying to understand a paragraph for the third time when the sound of books falling in a back corner of the building caught his ears. He spotted Ralena run down the aisle on the other side of the book cases, drawing her suddenly present weapons. Not far behind her a man with spikey black hair gave a whoop of excitement and followed after her yelling, "Finally! Some action!"

Vincent stood quickly, reaching for Cerberus, which was now attached to his hip.

Aerith put out a hand to stop him, calm leaf green eyes looked at him. "You don't need to worry," she said peacefully, "they've got it under control."

He heard the man shout with joy followed by the sound of a bookshelf falling over. All at once, Vincent realized that the real library was smaller than where he was now, and that there were no other people about. His eyes looked over the table and Aerith, noticing all of the unreadable text and a small box that she drummed her fingers on.

"What is going on?" he asked, a little alarmed despite realizing that he was in a dream.

"Calm down, Vincent, I thought you could use the break. The other's aren't here, it's just the four of us."

He paused and looked at her. Then around at his surroundings again as Ralena and Zack ran around behind the stacks fighting creatures he could not make out. She was right, there was no sign of The Others. Ulster, Talos, Slasher and, blissfully, Chaos were all absent.

"The four of us?"

"Sorry," she said apologetically, "If I leave Zack alone in the Lifestream I'll have to go looking for him, and we don't have that kind of time."

That wasn't why he was asking, Zack was not who he wanted to know about, "What are you-"

There was a loud crumbling sound, like a rockslide, and daylight shined in as the roof of the library was lifted up. It was strange that light shone in, but there was only darkness and the sound of strong winds beyond the building.

Aerith sighed, shaking her head, "I swear, you'd think he would give you a little breathing room…"

*****

Crimson eyes opened and Vincent saw a metal ceiling he recognized as being in the Highwind. With a quick glance about he was able to determine that he was in one of the beds in the ship's medical bay, the lights were mostly off and he wasn't hooked up to anything. He closed his eyes and briefly assessed the feeling of his own body. No obvious pain or soreness struck him and he did not feel numb at all. Right now, his only physical need seemed to be that he was starving.

A slight noise caught his attention and he turned to see Ralena asleep in a nearby chair on the left side of the bed. She was leaned into the corner with her head at an uncomfortable looking angle.

He reached out towards her, but stopped when he saw the brass covered hand reaching towards her. He pulled the unsightly limb back and the image of her lying unconscious in a mass of metal flashed across his mind. Looking back up at the ceiling he put a hand over his eyes.

He was an idiot.

How had he let his tunnel vision for the job get so narrow?

How had he not seen…

"_… it seems like you are always fighting it_."

No, he knew why. The last time Vincent had mixed romance in with work, the consequences had been so disastrous he hadn't let himself consider it an option. He had fooled himself into thinking that the concern he felt for Ralena was because she was a comrade and a _friend_. That the affection he felt for her over the others was because she had awoken him, because he had seen her most vulnerable side, and that they had both suffered under Hojo.

He had been lying to himself.

Ralena had almost died and Vincent had been willing to let out Chaos for the opportunity to destroy the Weapon in retaliation. He had practically welcomed the entity that he had feared most because he thought he lost her. In that moment, if she was gone, he did not care.

He could not make the same mistake again. He would not do nothing again. He would not stand aside and let this pass him by.

Vincent was sure that his dedication to the mission had Ralena believing that he wasn't interested, in that regard he had fooled them both. She always tried to be so considerate of his feelings and idiosyncrasies. He was sure that she had not sensed any interest from him, and therefore had decided to not act on her feelings.

He wanted to reach out and touch her face, to feel her skin against his fingertips. Was she dreaming of fighting creatures alongside Zack? Was she having fun? Was she still worried about him, even in sleep?

Annoyance came over him. Before going to the Reactor, they had been discussing a mission into Junon, as the city was still recovering from a Weapon attack of its own, it was the perfect time to move in and get some information while it was still in recovery. They still needed to do it, and sooner rather than later. They _had_ to find out what was going on. Sephiroth clearly had a plan, but they did not have enough pieces of the puzzle. ShinRa had more information that they weren't sharing with Cait Sith, they needed to know more. They needed to do this.

His thoughts moved to their trip through Junon. How he pulled Ralena against him with a snap decision to hide their activities from a patrolling trooper. Her hands gripping his bare shoulders, and her body tight against his. Her startled gasp and fast beating heart. At that time, if the trooper would have never noticed them, would she have relaxed against him? Would she have tried to make the moment more genuine?

He cursed his wandering mind, for making him think of such a thing, he did not have the time for it now. They just had to get through this mission to Junon quickly. It would be another delay, but he just had to take the time to plan this and get what they needed. A quick and dirty hit and run for documents and records. _Then_ he could clear things up with Ralena. Then everything would be better.

Vincent looked at her again. He pushed himself up on his left arm, then gently reached out with his right hand, brushing hair away from her face. Then he laid back down and searched her features for any visible sign of injury.

"_Eventually, there will come a moment, an instant, where it's the mission or her._"

If there was only a moment to act, he would choose her. But now, when he had time, when there was planning to do, his analytical mind told him it could wait. Just a little longer. He told himself. It wouldn't be long.

They just had _one_ mission to take care of... An infiltration mission.

He sighed, infiltration was a weak point in the group, most of them were terrible actors. Mulling it over in the dark, occasionally glancing over at the sleeping Ralena, an idea struck him, and some of his annoyance ebbed away. Why not try mixing a little business with pleasure once again?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Ikkenai = shit (Literally: That's not good)  
• Detekuru = come forth (according to google translate)  
• AHHH what a big fight scene! Why did I do this to myself!? Honestly I am really proud of it though… I only have… oh god, I have at least 3 more big fight scenes planned *Cries*  
•I had a hard time deciding how big to make the Ultimate Weapon, but I decided that Kaiju size, while appropriate, was too big, as something of that scale is difficult for me to wrap my head around. The key part for me was "How big can it be for Avalanche to logically be able to fight it?"  
• Also a special mention of this article (https://thelifestream.net/lifestream-projects/editorials/40769/the-potential-of-shinras-non-soldier-experiments-in-the-ffvii-remake/) I read on The Liestream.net for giving me some ideas on how to describe the combatants


	29. Junon Undercover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Gettin' Ready; A Quick Stop; On the street; Dinner and Dancing; Someplace Dark

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Seriously... I had half of this chapter written before I started posting... I didn't expect it to take so long to get here.

  
Ralena frowned at herself in the mirror, moving her hair to the other side again. Her normally scarlet locks were dyed a more subdued brown. She hadn't dyed her hair since she lived in Midgar, and she didn't care for it then either. “Would you stop fussing?” Tifa scolded, “I told you I could have done this part.”

Ralena sighed, “We talked about why Vincent and I were best for it. Cait Sith said that he ‘misplaced’ all of the good photos of Avalanche at ShinRa.”

“Yeah, so it shouldn’t be a problem, for me either.”

“But the Turks are in town, and between us girls I'm the one who can easily change my hair _and_ eye color and they've barely seen me." She stood and walked over to the mirror, twisting slightly in it. "Do I really have to wear this? I would prefer pants in case I have to run or something.”

She had trusted Tifa to pick her clothes earlier. It was not something that she had much experience with. She knew it wasn't the most flattering thing she had tried on earlier that day, but Vincent had told them that disguising their body types would help. The dark green wrap dress went down to her calves and did not quite hug her curves. It cinched at the waist, but was loose on the top and billowed out quickly over her hips. The sleeves were almost off the shoulder, and went down to her elbow to cover her number tattoo and disguise her otherwise well-defined arm muscles.

“We agreed that a couple on a date was the best cover for the situation,” Tifa replied. Ok, so she had pushed for that once they had decided who was doing this part. With the rate she was going with Cloud, she felt someone should be getting some action. If she had to shoulder throw them down a tunnel of love to make them realize it, she would. “If you have to run, something has gone wrong. Besides where you are going for dinner, it has to be a dress.”

“Yeah… I guess you’re right,” she muttered. Ralena did a quick test bounce in her heels, shifting her weight like she was fencing. At least the heels were not too high and the shoes were mostly comfortable.

Tifa watched the woman assess the combat capability of her outfit and bit back a sigh. She agreed that it was hard to tell if Vincent was romantically interested in Ralena. He certainly gave off subtle signs, which the untrained eye could mistake for friendliness, or purely physical interest. Since Tifa was dealing with the blonde target of her own affection, who was very reserved in the field of romance, she gained insight she might not have had otherwise. She noticed things about Vincent, and his reactions to the empath that she hadn't seen with Cloud. She could only hope that she was missing the signs from the blonde. Even if neither of them knew it, Tifa felt that Ralena was closer to getting with Vincent than she was to getting with Cloud. Especially given how he had lost his shit when that dragon Weapon almost took her out. Maybe it was all that time they had alone together on the road.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to do this?” Tifa asked again, “You can’t bring your weapons with you on this, and I’ve always got my fists.”

“I’m sure I’ll be fine,” she said exasperated. Like many strong and willful young women, the temporarily-not-a-redhead disliked being told that she was incapable. "Besides, it's a little late to change up roles, isn't it?" Tifa smirked at her insistence to take on this part of the mission, for an empath she didn’t seem to realize her friend was manipulating her for her own good.

“I coulda done it too,” said Yuffie, coming out of the bathroom in a pair of black slacks and a white button down.

Tifa cast a doubtful glance at the teen ninja. “mmm… I don’t think so,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why not?”

“Sorry Yuffie, but I don’t think you could keep your cool,” Ralena teased.

“I would be TOTALLY cool.”

Tifa rolled her eyes, “I thought you found Vincent creepy anyway.”

“Eh-" Yuffie shrugged, "he’s grown on me.” Vincent was the only male on the team viable for this role. For obvious reasons, Nanaki, Cait Sith and Barret were out. As a prominent member of the space program Cid's face was too well known. That left Vincent and Cloud. Cloud was too well known to the Turks and his spiky hair refused to be tamed. Vincent's habit of wearing his face obscuring cloak and hair in his face made him the least likely to be identified.

“If you pretended to go on a date with him it would draw too much attention anyway.” Ralena said as she walked into the now unoccupied bathroom to check her make up in the better light and fiddle with her hair some more.

Yuffie grinned confidently, “Because I’m such a babe right?”

“Because he’d look like a cradle robber,” the empath laughed

“What?” Yuffie asked, clearly unfamiliar with the term.

“There’s this thing called ‘age of consent’," Tifa clarified, "Besides we need you on the infiltration part, you're the best one for it."

It pleased the ninja to hear that they acknowledged her skills. She was about to make some comment about how she sure she was the best when two quick solid knocks sounded at their inn room door. "I got it!" Yuffie said, hopping over. She opened it to reveal Vincent and her jaw dropped.

The former Turk stood there, fixing some cufflinks, wearing dark slacks, a matching blazer, a sage green button down and tie. His long hair was tamed and tied back in a pony tail at the base of his skull and his normally red eyes were dulled with brown color contacts. 

His almost bored expression turned to look a little annoyed at Yuffie's dumfounded expression. Ignoring the stunned shinobi, Tifa walked over looked him up and down, then crossed her arms. “I thought I told you not to wear black.”

“It's charcoal,” he answered stoically.

She frowned, "That's barely a shade lighter…" at least he wasn't wearing red. She looked down, and he had gotten proper dress shoes. If only Aerith had been here to help, then they each could have split up shopping for the two of them. All the men on their team were rough around the edges, and Red XIII didn’t wear clothes… well Cait Sith may have had some good input, but he had been offline during mission prep, trying to get the schedules of the security patrols and other such information on their targets. Besides, sending a robotic cat with a grown man as a fashion consultant would have stood out too much... and been hilarious. “Did you at least talk to Cait Sith?”

"Yes, he set up the reservation, got me an alias and I have the reader." He held up a device that looked like a rectangular make-up compact.

Tifa took it and brought it to the open bathroom door. He watched as an arm reached out and take it. "I swear," he heard Ralena mutter, "Why even make purses this small?" as she stepped out, she looked at the ninja, "Yuffie, are you trying to catch flies?" Her hair was now neatly brushed back with the top half tied into a bun.

Vincent took a moment to drink in her appearance, the only thing he found disappointing about her it was that she was trying to not look like herself. A slight smirk graced his features, “Miss Montgomery, my name is Ashton Williams, and I will be your escort this evening.” Vincent greeted, offering her his left arm.

She smiled back looking him up and down appreciatively, “But of course Ashton, and please, call me Anne,” she replied, putting on a slight country accent and looping her arm around his left. She felt the slightest twitch and a quick spike of agitation come off of him. He still did not like being touched on his left hand, but he had to keep his glove on and the one permanent brace below the elbow made the jacket bulk out a little, it wasn't a lot, but a sharp eyed Turk might be able to spot it. To prevent that they had agreed that she should try to help cover it. She made a point of trying to keep her hands above the brace, as that did not seem to bother him as much.

Yuffie stared back and forth at the two of them, “What just happened?.”

“We’re gettin’ into character, hon,” the swordswoman said, patting her partner’s upper arm, “Like I said, you can’t keep your cool.”

As Tifa watched the pair leave, the empath with a smile on her face, and Vincent with an actual spark in his gaze, she wished dearly that Aerith could have been here to see it.

***

Reno hung up the phone, jumped up from the desk he was using in Junon, and swung around to poke his head in the small neighboring office. "Elena, we got a sighting in town, get your shit together, we'll head out in five."

"A sighting?" she asked, confused.

"Wallace," he clarified with an eager grin, "Or do you know any other gun-armed-men? Looks like Avalanche is visiting again." He went back to the neighboring office to grab his jacket and mag rod. He had been a little anxious for the past few days since Corel Reactor incident which Rude was checking out now. Reeve had sent in a detailed report on this particular Avalanche related event very quickly. Including video from the Cait Sith unit. Undoubtedly, this was to pre-emptively clear himself and Avalanche of any charges that could arise from the deaths of the reactor crew. It also showed that most of the damage to the facility itself was the caused by the Weapon that had pulled it open like a paper bag. If it wasn't for his video they would have almost nothing, the security recordings for the reactor would not be available until the Mako leaks were buttoned up, and there was no guarantee that it would even be recoverable.

He remembered looking at the state of the reactor and almost immediately checking the casualty list, feeling oddly relieved that no members of Avalanche were on it. He pressed his lips together in annoyance at himself, he shouldn't want them to live, they were supposed to be the enemy. Still, he could not get rid of the needling doubt regarding the one member he had not met yet.

He made a few quick calls and shot out an email to the local PD with an alert on it. He sighed, half of the stations were not yet fully operational yet. A few had lost nearly all of their computer equipment and a chunk of their officers. The Weapon attack on the city had left the local authorities crippled and busy.

When he stepped out of the small office again, Elena was locking her door. "Ready to hit the street, Rookie?" Reno asked.

"Yes, sir!" Elena said, resisting the urge to salute.

"It's good timing that you're here," Reno said as they stepped out into the halls of the base. "As it is, it'll still be a bitch to case the town with just the two of us."

"No kidding." Elena had been in Junon for the last day, waiting for her target to surface, as it was easier to quickly deploy from here compared to Midgar. The fact that she was running out to find Avalanche now meant that the team she had on standby might not be needed. She inwardly seethed a little at Scarlet, who seem to think that Elena could not figure out that her target was a member of this pseudo-terrorist team.

If they were damn lucky the preparations she was making wouldn't be needed, but she doubted it. Avalanche had to be here for a specific reason, which meant they likely had an exit strategy.

"Can we recruit any help for this?" she asked.

Reno shook his head, "Nothing that is gonna be useful. The cops have their pics, but given how tired everyone is from the restoration efforts and keepin' the peace, I doubt they could tell a chocobo from a bandersnatch."

"You got a point," Elena said, a bit disheartened, it was shaping up to be another failed fox-hunt. Knowing what she did about Avalanche she could assume that, once they achieved their goal, they would surely head across the sea until the heat died down. She already made preparations for her team to be transported to Costa Del Sol within the next day. Scarlet was getting impatient. Elena had to get this done soon before the weapons developer decided to test the new gizmos on her instead, and Elena had no doubt that the bitch would be happy to do it too.

Reno smirked at her, "I'm sure by now, you've figured out that we Turks can only really rely on each other. Come on, let's go."

*****

He polished the glass on the display and wondered why he was bothering. Since that giant monster attack last week, people were not exactly swarming his store. He debated closing up shop early when a young couple walked in. They were clearly dressed for a night out, but the woman seemed confused about the stop.

"Are you sure we have time?" She asked nervously, she seemed relieved to be off the street but she looked around as though she had never been in a jewelry store, like the displays might attack her.

The man smiled at her, "We have nearly an hour until our reservation."

The shop owner smiled and nodded a welcome, not wanting to interrupt their conversation. From what he was reading, it looked like the man had plans to advance their relationship and she had no clue. He doubted _a ring_ would be involved, and given the woman's lack of jewelry he started thinking through his inventory for items a more modest woman would be interested in. It probably wouldn't be an expensive item, but a sale was a sale and he was sure that the theatre he would get would be well worth it.

The man's arm moved from where he was holding open the door and found itself at his date's back. He guided her gently to the counter. "How can I help you this evening?" the jeweler asked pleasantly.

"I would like to buy a necklace for the lady," The man said and she turned to him, surprised. He smiled down at her, "Something that brings out the green in her eyes, I think."

The jeweler took note of her hazel eyes, complexation and hair color he also took in the woman's bewildered expression. He smiled, this would take a delicate touch if he didn't want to unnerve her further. "If that is the case, then I would recommend either red or green gems on gold."

"Green," the man replied softly and immediately. It did not escape the jewelers notice that the color of the man's shirt also complimented the woman's coloration. He clearly thought this out in advance.

The jeweler escorted them to a specific display. "Do you see anything you like, miss?"

"I… I don't know," she stammered. It seemed that she was just recovering from the shock. Had the man never bought anything for her before? This didn't feel like a first date, she was far too comfortable with how close they stood to each other. In her discomfort, she had even moved closer to him as though he were a life preserver.

"Why don't I leave you two to browse a bit?" He suggested, slowly stepping back and giving them plenty of time ask him to stay. "Call me if you want to try anything on."

There were several minutes where the couple quietly looked at the case. He heard her tell him a that it wasn't necessary. The man was gentle, yet insistent. She deserved something nice, he said. She hemmed and hawed about expense, she'd never spent so much on- again, he stopped her. Insisting that it was alright.

Eventually, the jeweler was called over to pick out a piece. He smiled at it, "A fine choice, it goes well with the cut of your dress." She blushed, clearly a woman not used to receiving compliments. The necklace featured a large, but fine, brass wire amulet, generally in the shape of a downward pointing triangle that hung just below her collarbone. The vine-like design was spotted with a several inexpensive green garnets.

The man took the necklace in his hands and held it up to her, allowing the jeweler to notice his gloved left hand for the first time. "Shall I?" He asked his date.

She shyly nodded and turned, pulling her hair aside. As he fastened the necklace on, her blush refused to go away. Smiling at the sight, the jeweler brought a mirror over. Once the necklace was on, the man put his hands on her shoulders and turned her to see herself in the provided surface. There was a faint, but sharp, inhale from her. The man's appreciative gaze was hard to miss, "I think that pulls it together nicely…" he said quietly. Her wide eyes used the mirror to look into his.

"Is this the one?" The jeweler asked, knowing the answer, regardless if he was inquiring about the necklace or the person.

Seemingly unable to remove her eyes from her partner's reflection, she nodded mutely, and the man smiled, finally turning his attention to the store owner. "I believe so."

The jeweler tried to sell her on the matching bracelet or ring, but she was having none of it. Judging by the look in the man's eyes he expected he might come back for it after his next paycheck.

*****

As they left the jewelry shop, arm in arm again, Ralena let her fingers rest on the necklace. She didn't own much jewelry, and the pieces she did were partly made of leather or had materia slots in them. She thought it cost a lot for something purely decorative, but that didn't matter right now. It made her feel a little warm to have him buy her something that was otherwise useless. She felt herself beginning to feel a little warm again.

"Considering where we're going for dinner you would stand out more for a lack of jewelry," he smirked, "I'm surprised Tifa didn't think about that."

Of course.

She turned her face away as the warmth inside of her vanished. He had bought it for her, but there was the veil of practicality about the purchase. It wasn't a gift, it was a _prop_, part of the disguise. Even the purchasing of it was probably part of the show. She had let herself forget, this wasn't a real date.

This was just a damn mission.

Vincent noticed the grip of her hand on his sleeve tighten and her shoulders drop slightly and he mentally kicked himself for mentioning the functional application of the jewelry. He really hadn't meant it that way, the use of it was an _excuse_ for the purchase, not the reason. He had honestly wanted to get her something, and now he'd gone and ruined it by mentioning how it was actually practical. He would have to find a way to make it up to her. "I look forward to seeing how it looks with your green eyes," he said, hoping to mitigate the damage to her mood.

Her head was still turned away from him, "Might not get the chance, I feel like it's too expensive to keep." It didn't seem right to spend shared funds on something like this, even if it was for a mission, the dinner was going to be expensive enough.

Her dull, disappointed tone caused a sharp spike of guilt to go through him. He now saw the flaw in his plan to try and show her how he felt tonight. Nothing he said would register as genuine. "I bought it with my share," he said softly, "I want you to keep it."

She turned to look at him, and while it was not a happy expression, a mix of confusion and hesitation, it was still an improvement. "Thank you," was the quiet reply as she turned back forward and they continued down the street in silence.

As they moved along the number of people on the street became denser, she pulled closer to him and her grip became tense. Vincent leaned forward slightly and caught sight of the war of color in her eyes, and a slight strain on her face. "Are your shoes bothering you?" he asked, "Do you need to rest?"

Ralena looked up to him, knowing he was not really asking about her feet, though the shoes were a little uncomfortable after this long walking in them. "We don't have much farther to go, right? I'll manage until we can sit down."

He was not sure that was a good idea, while the restaurant would be less crowded than the street, it would hardly been absent of people. Cait Sith said he had trouble getting the reservation on short notice, even with the recent Weapon attack on the city. Vincent reminded himself that it would be okay if he remained calm. His mood had been a little up and down with his attempts to make this date real. Which would not help her re-center if she started to loose herself. His usual mission mentality would definitely damage his attempts to meet his secondary objective, but until their part was done it was a sacrifice he had to make. "You can always lean on me, if you need to," he said quietly, gathering his annoyance and frustration and pushing them deep down where he hoped she would not sense them and misunderstand.

"I know," she said, looking up at him with a half-smile.

His eyes caught sight of something and he suddenly stopped. A hand found its way around her waist and Ralena felt herself pulled against him. She found herself registering the scent of cologne and a brief burst of alarm that was quickly smothered. Did he buy cologne just for this mission? Vincent leaned down, his cheek touching the side of her head. "Turks," His breath was hot in her ear and she felt a rush of blood making its way to her face. “The redhead and blonde.”

Turning her body to face him fully, her right side to the street, she caught a look at said Turks as they walked past, averting her eyes as the petite blonde woman began to turn their way. It wasn't hard to look disinterested in other people, Vincent was very distracting right now. The firmness of his lean body against hers was obvious even under the suit. Vincent was so close, and his hand on her waist was distressing her for other reasons.

There was a strange mix of emotions roiling within her chest. She was embarrassed at the public display. His body against hers made her feel warm and she wanted to lean into him. But his hand pressing against the scars on her waist made her want to squirm out of his grip. Why didn't she think this might happen on their "date"? She tried to force her surprise and discomfort to the back of her mind, this was a dangerous moment for them and she had to remain calm.

His left arm was wrapped tight around her, using her body to obscure the view of it. He hadn't bothered to go for a full kiss to hide their identities, that was a rookie move. On the open street like this it drew attention, and if the people you were hiding from lingered, you’d be kissing for an awkwardly long time, which drew more attention. Instead he moved so that they were side-on to the street, like lovers talking closely. She was uncomfortable under his touch, and he could feel how tense her body was under his hands.

Why was she so uncomfortable? Was it just nerves? "They're clearly looking for something," he said quietly, hoping a little discussion would calm her.

"Probably all of us," she said, swallowing hard. She blushed and tried not to shudder as he whispered in her ear. The words were hardly evocative, but she would be surprised if he couldn't feel her heart beating against his chest. She was suddenly reminded of their first trip to Junon, when he had unexpectedly pulled her close and pressed his face against her neck. She did her best to wrangle her thoughts back to the present and relax her body, but it seemed to be a losing battle.

Vincent looked over her head as the blonde woman made a gesture and jogged down the street. Suddenly, it was as though he realized how close Ralena was, and his face began to feel uncharacteristically warm and anxiety creeped in. They were on a mission, this embrace was a ruse. This was not something that should have made him... Taking a guess, he pulled his face back so that he could meet her eyes. “Lights on,” he whispered. She gasped and turned her head away from him towards the street, embarrassed at her loss of control.

The embarrassment left him, but the uncertainty and anxiety stuck around, the feeling from her having ignited his own.

He brought a hand to her cheek and turned her to face him again, it was meant to both comfort her and obscure her face from the Turk nearby. He wished he could have focused on her more, to understand the faint sensations he was feeling from her. "Are you ok?" He asked quietly, honest concern on his face.

For a moment, she wondered if he was sincere, or if it just part of the theatre. Then she realized that reality fit into the act quite nicely, for a moment they didn't have to pretend for this to work.

"I'm sorry," she said, her eyes already dimmed back to hazel. "You just surprised me." Her eyes darted around the crowd, "With so many people around, I'm a little embarrassed."

"It's fine." They both tried not to look directly at the Turk who they could see out of the sides of their vision. The enemy's shock of red hair made him easy to track. She turned her gaze away from Vincent, closing her eyes for a moment, and there was a potent flash of shame and anxiety that went through his hand where he touched her face. Something else bothering her. He moved his thumb to caress her cheek and catch her eye, "Ra- Anne, what's wrong?"

Ralena looked back at him, more from the near slip up than the question. "You're hand…" Her other arm came up and rested on his left arm, where she squeezes his bicep slightly, then she looked away. "I have... old scars," she whispered stiffly.

He managed not to immediately release her in his surprise. She had never mentioned this sensitivity to him, but the feeling radiating down his hand mirrored how he felt about his left arm being touched and he had been holding her for an uncomfortably long time. No wonder he got the feeling she wanted to flee like a rabbit. He would have liked to better address it, but circumstances dictated the conversation. "He's coming this way."

"Didn't you have somewhere special to take me?" she asked, trying not to let desperation seep into her voice. They had set up a few date related code phases ahead of time, she was asking if they should leave. He nodded and he slid his arm out from behind her, relief flood through her as his hand moved away, but it was accompanied by contrary disappointment.

****

Reno was surveying the people on the street, looking for the telltale features of the members of Avalanche, their escape from Junon proved that some of them were capable of actually thinking of using disguises. He wanted to find them, he wanted to talk to _that one_. He pushed those thoughts aside, he couldn't do shit about it if he never caught them.

While scanning down the sidewalk, he spotted the slight glow of Mako green eyes reflected in a shop window. Whipping his head around he searched among the crowd for the couple from the reflection. By the time he spotted them, the man had a hand on the woman's face. He sighed, her eyes weren’t green. Hell, her hair wasn't red either. It must have been the color changing lights in the shop behind her that tricked him.

The man was holding her close and they were talking quietly. She looked embarrassed, possibly from the embrace, or whatever he was whispering in her ear. Her eyes seemed to gesture to the crowd around them and there was a split second where her eyes met Reno's. She quickly averted them, like most people when meeting eye contact with a stranger. Hazel eyes, no Mako glow at all.

Maybe he was just seeing things.

Still…

His instincts itched at the back of his mind, so he turned his attention to the man. He seemed the right height and build with long black hair that was tied back. The couple was angled so that the man's back was slightly towards him, making it difficult to make out his face and eye color.

Reno started towards them.

He made it halfway across the street when the comm in his ear went off, “Sir, I’ve got eyes on Wallace!” Elena whispered to him excitedly. "I think he's headed towards the airstrip."

"Tch", irritated, but not able to justify following up on the hunch when a target had been sighted, he turned down the street towards his fellow Turk. “Roger that, what is your location?” He looked back at the couple one more time, they had started to walk in the opposite direction down, her arms wrapped around one of his and her body more relaxed than it had been a moment before.

Well, at least someone looked like they were going to have a nice evening.

***

When the Turk did not pursue, Vincent was pleased that everything seemed to be going according to plan. They had equipped Cait Sith with Yuffie's Projection materia, and placed him and Barret where they could see most of the street. This allowed one of the most visibly stand out members of the group to be a distraction, without putting him in immediate danger.

Looking at his watch he knew it wouldn't be long until the others started their operation either. While Barret's ghost led the Turks to the airstrip, the others would sneak down to the docks and see about obtaining some Mako fuel cells for the Highwind. They weren't in desperate need of it yet, and it would have been easier to get fuel from one of the lesser guarded outposts. But this gave ShinRa another reason for Avalanche to be in Junon, rather than what they were really here for.

"Sorry," she said after a minute. "I should have told you."

He looked at her, sympathy in his gaze ."It's never come up before," he replied, "It's ok." He wondered now if that was the real reason she had purchased her belted vest way back when. Like his gauntlet, it acted as extra layers to prevent contact.

As they made their way out to the main street, where the sky was beginning to turn orange, they saw the masses of sea birds out at sea. Even a week later, the remains of the ocean bound Weapon that attacked Junon was still feeding the local sealife. The other thing that did not escape their notice, was the massive cranes taking off parts of the cannon, which already appeared to be half way gone. "Why are they taking it apart?" The empath asked, too shocked at the scale of the activity to keep her thoughts quiet.

"I heard they are moving it to Midgar," Vincent replied, concern evident in his voice. A move like that was impossible to keep secret, so he had no problems speaking the answer aloud. It was another thing that they did not know ShinRa's reason for. Vincent thought it was tactically unsound to disarm yourself for so long. The Weapons could attack on short notice, and it would likely take at least another week to move the thing, never mind make it operational.

*******

They arrived a few minutes early for their reservation. It was a high end restaurant set up like a nightclub from an old movie. Round tables with white tablecloths surrounding a dance floor with a stage at one end. The stage was currently empty, but soothing jazz music played from speakers hidden in the décor.

Ralena was happy to be off of the street, they were in on the early end of the night, and their target's reservation wasn't for another half hour or so. She was happy to let Vincent take the lead with the waiter, she felt so out of her element in a place this classy. She never imagined she would be going somewhere that required men to wear ties and jackets. She fretted a little when she realized that the menu had no prices on it. Vincent assured her that it was all taken care of. Later he could tell her that Cait Sith had set them up with a prepaid card that should cover a dinner for four, as long as he didn't get any top shelf wine.

They had finished up with their salads and she was half way through her glass of wine when Vincent pulled his phone and checked it.

_Location confirmed, right jacket pocket._

Pocketing it again, he stood, and offered her a hand, "Shall we?" He asked, an unfamiliar glint in his eyes.

She looked between his hand and face, then took the offered hand but was clearly confused, "Shall we...?"

A smirk found its way to his lips, "Dance."

"But I never…" she started as he pulled her to standing.

"I'm confident you can follow my lead."

She blushed and allowed him to lead her out to the floor in the middle of the tables. She only knew a few country dances, all of which were group affairs with simple, repeated steps. He helped properly place her arms, and began the basic steps. "I didn't think you would be much of a dancer..." she said after she started to understand the pattern.

"Only ballroom," he explained, guiding her through a simple turn before pulling her back into frame, "for formal occasions."

"I see, ever the man of mystery," she said coyly.

"I'm not that good," he said modestly, "I could never do any of those new-fangled dances the kids are doing these days."

She laughed, "Dancing and openly making jokes? You're just full of surprises tonight aren't you?"

He smiled, admittedly, one of those surprises was a stash of explosives nearby incase things went horribly wrong, but he wouldn't mention it. Instead he leaned forward and whispered in her ear, "I have a few more in mind for later."

She turned red and lost her footing for a moment. Was he _trying_ to make her forget about the mission? Because he was damn well on his way to succeeding, and she honestly didn't care. As hope blossomed in her chest she tried to tell herself he was just playing it up for the cover. If that turned out to be the case she was going to have Tifa mix her the largest, strongest, fruitiest thing she could manage and drown herself in it later. She looked up at his expression, he was smiling at her blush and she decided that, for now, she could at least pretend.

They danced through the rest of the song with little talking, as she focused on trying to not make a fool of herself. He merely offered her verbal and physical guidance under a strangely watchful gaze. The basics of the dance were not too far off from what little she knew, and she got the pattern down.

"I'm glad we got to go out tonight," he said, as the next song started.

"Yeah," she agreed, "It is a change of pace isn't it?"

"Did I tell you yet that you look beautiful?"

She blinked at him in surprise, eyes momentarily going green. "Uh… no." He had never said such a thing, ever. She found herself looking around, wondering if he thought someone was close enough to overhear their conversation.

"You do," he said softly, "every day." She felt like she was living in a perpetual state of blushing and she could almost swear that he was beginning to lean closer when his eyes flicked up and looked off to one side. He straightened up and while his expression did not change, his eyes became serious and… disappointed? He led her through another turn, and when he pulled her back in, he had moved so that they had switched which direction they were facing, "He's here." Looking over his shoulder she saw their target. A bear-like man with a full beard in a dark green suit.

A loud laugh found its way out of the man's mouth, if he had only waited three seconds, Vincent wouldn't have needed to tell her the man had arrived. She let out a sigh, fairy tale time was over. At least this next segment required very little acting for her.

It was time to do their part.

Cait Sith was being kept in the dark as far as the Reactor attacks went. They knew that the Turks had been investigating the attacks, but the spy did not have access to their reports. The weak point in this chain, Cait had said, was Heidegger, the Head of Public Safety. He was boorish and overconfident. The Turks may follow the proper protocols to keeping their reports secure but the same was not true for Heidegger a fact that was backed up by the crew of the Highwind.

Vincent and Ralena's job was to get their hands on his key card. Cait Sith and Cid had given created a card-reading device that they managed to disguise as a makeup palette. Once they scanned the card with it, it was a small matter of passing the compact off to Yuffie who would use it to copy the card and sneak into his office.

For the most part, their role was the least dangerous, with no intent for direct combat. But if they _were_ discovered they had no weapons on them, just a Time-All materia combination on a bangle in her purse to _Haste_ themselves so that they could flee.

By the end of the song, Heidegger was seated, and Vincent made a comment about the man being in the room. He lead her over to the table, with hushed conversations about how great the man was and Ralena was shocked at how completely Vincent's mannerisms had changed. Playing an appreciated veteran, Vin-_ Ashton Williams_, Second Lieutenant from the 3rd Regiment, introduced himself. Talking about how wonderful he thought Heidegger was and, I'm sorry to bother you, can I shake your hand, sir?

Easily flattered, Heidegger laughed while Ralena played the smiling but less interested girlfriend. As Heidegger shook Ashton's hand, Vincent lifted the key card, momentarily apologizing and making a fuss about his stiff left hand. The real Ashton injured his right hand, but Heidegger would never remember a detail like that, even if he had read the report for every medical discharge from the Wutai War five years ago. "How rude of me, this is Anne, she'll be my wife one day if I can tie her down," he said smiling.

Still hanging on his arm, she said, "Oh, don't worry about me," blushing slightly. She had no doubts this was an act. His tone and speech patterns were completely different. But the word 'wife' just seemed to strike the right cord. Ralena subtly took the keycard, as he passed it to her under his arm, then excused herself to the powder room, grabbing her purse from their table on the way.

Once in the bathroom It was a simple matter to swipe the card, but she didn't want to leave Vincent too long, but she could not come back too quickly either. Vincent had to keep Heidegger talking while she was gone so that they could return the card without suspicion. As she stood in front of the mirror to spot check her hair and make-up, a waitress walked in and gave her a nod in greeting. The empath returned it then quickly rearranged the items in her tiny purse, leaving the disguised reader on the counter.

Heidegger was in the midst of some tale when she returned. She noticed Vincent's stiff shoulders, and decided it was high time she saved her partner. She approached the talking men, and laid hand on Vincent's arm, "Sorry to interrupt," she said, dropping the keycard, "Ashton, I think our food has arrived. We really should leave him to enjoy his evening."

After they sat back down, Vincent's back to Heidegger's table, she saw him close his eyes and let his shoulders relax a little. "Now that we're done with that," he smiled, "Why don't we enjoy the rest of our evening?"

***

After Ralena left the bathroom, the waitress picked up the makeup compact she had left on the counter and made her way out the back door. Removing the long haired wig, Yuffie made her way down a few alleys then up to a balcony where she had stashed a change of clothes and a few other supplies. As instructed, she used the compact to program the blank keycard she had and made her way to Heidegger's Office. Once inside, she pulled a small plush cat, a little larger than her phone, out of the pouch she brought with her. "Show time," she whispered with a grin.

Lights came on in the cat's eyes, "Plug the left arm into the computer, please," it said, "Then I can go through the files."

She did so and as the mini Cait Sith interacted with the computer she went rummaging about the desk for hard copies they might need to duplicate.

***

With every part of their mission done except the exit, Vincent was able to focus more on his secondary goal for the evening. As they ate, Vincent found it easy to get her flustered with simple flattery. Several times Ralena bashfully moved to tuck hair behind her ear even though it was tied up. It was a habitual gesture that he loved to watch for a while, but had avoided indulging in. Now that he acknowledged how he felt about her, he couldn’t understand how he had managed to ignore how beautiful she was.

Ralena, on the other hand, was all over the board. Normally, she didn't need her abilities to figure out her quiet companion, but tonight, most of Vincent's usual mannerisms seemed to be out the door. He was smiling a lot, making jokes and _dancing_. Had she missed something? Did Chaos scramble his brain and leave him a different man? That idea quickly went away, before they left the hotel everything seemed normal, maybe it was just the act. It must have been, when she needed his support, when things were dangerous, he was his usual self. Serious, sure and keeping her grounded just by being there.

But… then why did she keep catching him looking at her strangely? She felt a little flutter every time she caught it and shoved the feeling down. She really wanted to know what he felt right now, but she did not want to risk being found out because she was lovesick and confused about Vincent's behavior while they were undercover. She debated reaching across the table to touch his hand, it would be a common enough gesture for a date, but she didn't want to mix things up any more than they already were.

Vincent noticed her confusion, of course, and could not wait to clear the air. When they left here, when he felt safe using her name again, he would tell her that he was attracted to her. Given the anticipation knotting up within him he might just jump to showing her.

They were looking over the dessert menu when she spoke up. Her voice oddly even, "I think I'd like to skip dessert. There's little bar nearby that's nice and _dark_ that I want to check out."

He looked at her with concerned confusion. _Dark_? That was strange. That was a word they'd chosen that implied the need to hide. _Lively_ would've meant needing a quick exit. _Homey_, heading back to the Highwind, among a few others. He looked up at her, her jaw was set and her grip on the menu card was tight enough to turn her knuckles white. She was looking past him, towards the door and her eyes were tracking something behind him. What could possibly make her react that way?

Fortunately, Heidegger loudly answered his question before he turned to see for himself. "Hojo! So glad you could join me!"

Vincent’s entire form went still at the name. He didn’t dare turn around, he was sure that Hojo would recognize him, the irritating colored contacts and a change in hairstyle would not hide nearly enough.

"Yes, well if there is one thing I can trust you on, it's your taste in food," the slim man said, sounding indifferent.

"How's the research going?"

"It takes more than a few days to get samples and study them adequately," Hojo said, "Especially something like that."

Vincent gathered himself enough to flag down the waiter for their check without looking angry. He wished he had a gun on him to put the bastard out of their misery. Hell, he could probably just walk up behind him and snap his neck, and he should, but a big part of this mission was that the ShinRa not know it even happened if they could help it. Escaping would probably be difficult after that as well.

As it was, he had a much more immediate concern. He looked across the table where Ralena's eyes were blossoming green, still staring over his shoulder towards Heidegger's table. The glowing orbs clearly expressed her internal fight or flight debate. A few of the tables around them had fallen silent not knowing where the sudden creeping sense of fear was coming from... He reached across and touched her hand, she jumped slightly then met his eyes. "Did you leave the lights on?"

She swallowed hard and looked down, the green fading from her eyes, "Sorry, no I was just… distracted for a moment."

"He's just another man," Vincent said, as if trying to convince himself as well.

"Hardly," she whispered.

"He is," he said firmly, "For the next few minutes, he is just another man in the same room as us." It was a very Turk-like thing for him to say. Focus on the goal, on the mission, do not let the past compromise the now. Nothing else is irrelevant except the goal. As it was, speaking the words aloud helped to remind himself. "Until this is over, until we leave, he is just another man." He squeezed her hand gently, "We can go wherever you want after this."

"Thank you…" She said looking down, "I think I need a drink."

***

"Whaddya mean they're gone?" Reno almost yelled at the dockmaster. He and Elena had followed Wallace towards the airfield, but lost sight of him. They were talking to the security at the airstrip when they got word that the patrol robots at the dock had detected intruders. At that point the two Turks had hauled ass across town in the hopes of getting there in time to stop Avalanche.

"I mean they've escaped, sir. It seems they had a speed boat waiting for them."

Reno growled, and what did ShinRa have? Paddleboards?

Elena watched as Reno managed to physically remain composed, but it looked like he was about to blow a gasket. After working with him this evening she understood what Rude had said before they returned from the Mt. Nibel Reactor. For some reason, Reno was very invested in meeting with Avalanche again. Rude claimed not to know why, but she was sure that he had his suspicions. "Do you know where they went?" She asked.

The man shook his head, "The boat was too small to show up on our radar. They headed out straight west before we lost visual contact."

Reno put a hand to his face, "You didn't send any boats after them or anything?"

"We did, sir," The man said, quick to assure Reno that he had followed protocol, "but they had some kind of aquatic summon, it tipped all of them."

"Fucking summons," Reno muttered out loud, "How is it that every goddamn member of Avalanche is so capable with materia?" He shook his head, "Do you at least know what they were doing here?"

"It looks like they stole a ship-grade Mako fuel cell," the dock master quickly answered.

Reno sighed and turned towards the window that looked out over the dock yard. "We'll need to get people to sweep the docks for signs of sabotage, just to be safe." He turned back to the dockmaster, "Are there any ships that plan on leaving tonight? The speed boat might be a diversion if they plan on getting on one."

"Only a cargo ship."

The redhead tapped his mag rod against his leg, he was still agitated, but calming down. "Delay it until dawn, I'm going to check it for stowaways. Elena, you wait here in case any other suspicious reports come in. If they do, call me and head out. Don't wait for me."

"Yes, sir," she said. She honestly doubted it. Avalanche only had so many people, four had been sighted in the dockyard, and Wallace on the street, even if he pulled a disappearing act. She doubted that they would risk having everyone in town at once.

****

"What happened to her?" Tifa asked, as Vincent walked up the gangplank with Ralena draped over his back and onto the Highwind several hours after dinner.

"She drank too much."

"I can see that but... why?" It was very unlike the empath to drink more than was required for a light buzz. For her to get pass out drunk while on a mission was almost unthinkable.

"At the end of our dinner, Hojo made an appearance at the restaurant."

"Oh."

That was an apt response. When they'd chosen a bar in the lower city that was not too busy, the first thing she'd ordered was a double shot of whiskey and downed it with little ceremony. Wincing she ordered another and the bartender gave the alarmed looking Vincent a questioning look. He'd convinced her to switch to a mixed drink, while getting himself a bourbon to nurse. It did little to stem the tide. Fortunately, she let him do most of the ordering and he had the bartender mix her drinks with a light hand. He was pretty sure she was more into the act of drinking anyway. By her fourth beverage she was drunk, the liquor, on top of the wine from earlier, hitting her harder the beer she normally drank. He'd called it one more double shot later, especially since she'd ordered it while he stepped away to report in to the Highwind and asked them to let Iris out. After that he made her drink some water with one last virgin cocktail.

He helped her stumble down to the beach, where he fished the chocobo whistle out of her purse in order to summon Iris and get back to the Highwind.

"Well," Tifa sighed, "Let's get her to her bunk. Please, tell me you got some water in her."

"Not as much as I would have liked." He admitted. They passed Iris' reins over to a crewman and asked him to put the bird away.

Tifa escorted the pair along and helped him get Ralena into her room. They lay the redhead on her stomach, with her head close to the edge of the bed.

"I'll go get some hangover survival supplies, you ok to sit with her a few more minutes?"

"Of course," he said. After Tifa left the room. He knelt down and brushed her hair out of her face, glowing green eyes opened slightly.

"Sorry," she muttered, "I let him ruin our date."

"It's not your fault."

"I don't want to be afraid of him anymore," She moaned. He knew that, this was hardly the first time she'd said so tonight. She had been angry at herself once they left and muttered into her rum and cola about how she was fully capable of trouncing the bastard up and down ShinRa Tower. 

"I could hunt him down and kill him tonight if you want." It was both a joke and a serious offer. He doubted that she noticed the ship had already taken off, but he was still willing to go through with it.

"noo…" a limp hand came out and landed on his head, it slid down the side of his face and settled on his shoulder, she needed him here. "I'd rather you stay…" Before that night he had never imagined that anything would have been more important to him then murdering Hojo. When he saw the fear in her eyes at the restaurant he realized that he should have known better.

He wondered if he should have gone through with his plan, anyway. If he should have told her when they left. Told her that he meant everything , that nothing he had said to her that evening was an act. But it just hadn't seemed the right after they fled the restaurant. He didn't want_ that man_ to be any part of the moment that would be for them alone.

"I wanted to see more…" she murmured.

"More of what?"

"Surprises… you said…" her eyes slid shut, "you said you had more…"

"Don't worry, we'll save them for later." He frowned slightly, it would take a few days for the image of Hojo to leave them… No, there were too few moments when they managed to be alone these days. As soon as the right opportunity presented itself, he would act.

Vincent Valentine was done with waiting.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Sorry! For all the things that I know some of you are yelling at me for right now.  
• At the restaurant I totally imagine "You Belong to My Heart" by Bing Crosby playing when he asks her to dance (Yes, I can be that old school)  
• According to the internet the red stones would bring out the green in her eyes (complimentary color), BUT she normally has red hair, so I figured Vincent would go the other way


	30. Testing a Theory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Music Therapy; Spare Time; Testing a Theory; What's missing?; In the Pod; After Hours; Fight on Deck

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Taking a week off after this one, I might changes to every other week updates too... not sure yet. I have some (possibly) complicated scenes coming up and I want to work on them without burning out.  
• I refer to creatures as "Harriers" in this chapter, these are called "Sonic Speed" in the original game, so I took the name of one of their attacks. At this point I also wish I renamed the "Wind Wings" as well. Mostly because those names are hard to write around

Vincent insisted on taking responsibility for Ralena's drunken condition and stayed with her in her bunkroom until morning. When Tifa woke up and found him still there, dozing lightly while sitting on the floor and leaning against the wall in the clothes he had worn last night. At that point Tifa put on her "team mom" hat and told him to get some proper rest, or at least change and get some food.

It could have been her imagination, but Tifa thought that he was more reluctant than usual to leave the woman's side. While he did not need as much rest as normal people, he always made a point of being in a "ready condition" and resting when the opportunity presented itself. They never knew when the ability to sleep safely could be taken from them.

She hung nearby and it wasn't long until the empath emerged from her bunk bleary eyed, also in last night's rumpled clothes. Tifa noticed the wire wrap necklace, which had left an imprint in her chest. Hiding a smile, the bartender helped Ralena to the shower, making sure that she had clean clothes to change into. When she came out her hair was only a shade or two off from its normal color, the temporary dye not completely gone with a single washing.

Despite her current issue with bright lights and a headache, Ralena parked herself in front of the piano by the window in the Highwind bar after Tifa forced breakfast upon her. Sensing that she would prefer some time alone, the brawler told her to call her if she needed anything and left her to her own devices. The volume was turned down as she did a few scales before switching to a piece her hands knew by heart. As far as she knew, there was one copy of this music, something she had transcribed herself after moving in with the Telly's. It was not very long or complicated, but it was one of the few things she knew Sephiroth had written.

She buried herself in the feel of the song and the movements. She closed her eyes and put herself in the safe memories of the immutable past. Times when Hojo seemed far away. A time when she had not known Vincent and could not be confused by his behavior.

*****

Again, Sephiroth was studying the Cetra's relay. Annoyed that he could only do so while it was active.

Again, it was piano music, this time it came with images of a white room. This was music that he was intimately familiar with despite the fact that he had completely forgotten about it. He heard his own voice giving encouraging instruction and her determined responses, refusing to quit despite the late hour. For an instant he felt her pride as she mastered a difficult section and saw himself, smiling in approval.

He grit his teeth in disgust and refocused, his attention on the magic utilized here.

Clearly the little twit didn't have anything better to do than to mope around and broadcast thoughts for the Cetra to direct his way. If she could just be killed or put in a box somewhere he would not have to deal with these distractions.

By now it was a waste of his effort to destroy the relays that the Cetra had put into place, the bitch could replace them quickly enough, and each one was more refined than the last. Since he had become strong enough to keep the Cetra from dropping off his old memories it seemed she decided to switch to this "audio" assault. The woman's paltry attempt at psychological warfare was laughable.

Okay then, if that was how she wanted to play it, he would give them something to do with all of their free time.

*****

It was closing in on lunchtime when he found Ralena laying in the grass, not far from the Highwind, but just out of sight behind a lone standing evergreen where she managed found a spot in the shade. She had taken the chocobos out to graze and Vincent only found her because he spotted the birds nearby. At his approach she opened her eyes and squinted up at him and the bright sky beyond.

"Oh… hey, Vincent," she greeted, then turned her gaze to look at some clouds. She did not want to look at him just yet. There were too many strange moments last night for her to know how she should act.

"I was looking for you," he said plainly. Stopping a few feet away from her.

She smiled, "You don't have to check on me, I'm fine, honestly."

"Are you really?" he asked. "You drank a lot of alcohol in a short time last night. "

She pulled herself up to sitting and smiled at him, "Yes," she promised. "I just had to come down here to remind myself."

He settled down on the ground beside her, "Of what?" he asked, even if he had an idea of the answer.

"That I am free," she said, turning her face up to the sky, "that I can come out and see the sky and lay in the grass whenever I want. That I am not _his_ anymore."

She said the words with quiet conviction and pride, and he was happy to hear them, but he found himself frowning at the idea that she ever _belonged_ to Hojo in any capacity.

Like all of the members of Avalanche, she was a free spirit, but all of them had tethers that weighed them down. One by one, they were managing to cut the tightest lines or make the weights lighter. For Vincent and Ralena their heaviest burden was that man, and sharing that between them had made life so much more bearable.

They sat in a familiar and soon comfortable silence for a little while. Eventually she sat up as she remembered what he said, "You said you were looking for me?"

He nodded and Ralena turned away at the sound of a warking chocobo. Sable and Thunder were prancing around each other while Iris looked on, clearly the males were vying for her attention. He studied her profile a few seconds as she watched the birds, shading her eyes with a hand. "I have a theory I would like you to help me test," Vincent said.

"Sure," she replied unenthusiastically. She didn't turn to him. The way he phrased it, using the scientific terminology she associated with apathy, made her think it was rather unimportant. "What do you need help w-"

Out of the corner of her eye, she noticed something move close to her right side. Turning to see, she was surprised to see Vincent so close. His hand gently grabbed her chin and hazel eyes went wide and burst into vibrant green as soft, warm lips contacted hers. She barely caught sight of his red eyes before they slid closed and his hand drifted down to her neck. After a second the surprise and disbelief faded, delight washed over her and she leaned into him, moving her legs out of the way and kissing him back.

Encouraged by the sensation feeding into his lips, he wrapped his left arm around her back and pulled her close to him. His thumb gently caressed her neck, sending pleasant chills down her spine. Despite all of this, the kiss remained simple and nearly chaste, but still her stomach fluttered in delight.

He pulled back slightly. Leaning his forehead against hers, their noses were still touching as breath shared the same space. It was not an overly passionate embrace, but they still needed to catch their breath, her heart raced at the impossibility of it all. She heard him give a satisfied sigh. "As I suspected," he nearly whispered.

Not moving from their intimate position, she turned her eyes to look into his crimson ones.

"I enjoyed that much more than the one you gave me in Midgar," he smiled.

A blush lit her face, and she accidently projected her embarrassment outward.

"Light's on," he said, his smile softening.

Panic came off of her for a moment, as her eyes returned to hazel. She backed up slightly, but with his hand still on her shoulder, he didn't let her get too far.

"It's ok… I know how _I_ feel," he assured her. She didn't think she could trust herself to speak yet, so she let her eyes tell him that she wanted him to continue. "I have been thinking a lot about our time together since Midgar," he started, reluctantly letting them separate a little in order to get more a more comfortable sitting position, though he made a point of keeping some contact between them, moving his hand down to her hip. "In the church, I thought of moving your head to my lap. I didn't think anything of it, that it was just concern for your comfort. After we slept in the cave I missed the warmth of you against me in the nights that followed…

"After the crater, when you were struggling, I hated that I couldn't be with you... that was when I realized that I cared about you more. I wanted to be by your side, more than I wanted to rescue the others from execution." His expression became a little more serious, "Even then I always put the mission first. Sometimes it's the one I assign in my head to keep going. Find shelter, get to the next town, get passage on a ship."

He frowned slightly, looking deeply into her eyes and tentatively touched her face. "At the Corel Reactor… when I thought I lost you, I realized I was committing the same sin as before. I wanted something and I did nothing about it."

"I… I," she didn't know how to continue, she was overwhelmed by her own emotions. He had seen the worst of her, from a sniveling child to a combat mad banshee. "I didn't think… I thought you didn't…" she shut her eyes and took a breath, she felt like an idiot for being unable to express herself. "You're always so calm and cool on the surface" she said finally, "I didn't think you felt that way."

"I didn't think I did either," he laughed slightly, "but I suppose that's how I am."

She smiled, "That's ok. I like how calm you are."

He looked at her, cocking his head slightly, the question in his eyes.

"Even when I sense your emotions, you're so… still." she hesitantly put a hand on the side of his face, "You help me stay centered. I feel like I haven't done anything for you."

"That's ridiculous. You woke me up." With that he leaned in again, and she gladly met his lips with her own.

*****

After putting the chocobos away, Ralena and Vincent joined the rest of Avalanche for lunch in the operations room. Cait Sith gave everyone a high level overview of what they knew, but there were still details missing. So they would have to slog through the documents to see if they could find any other clues. One interesting bit he had discovered was that the ShinRa camp at the base of the crater had been out of contact since the Nibel Reactor explosion. Several days afterward one of the troopers was found in the snow, but he had not awoken yet.

"So that's why his troops were in cold weather camo," Cloud said aloud.

"That means in addition to the crater monsters, he has access to three hundred troopers and twenty SOLDIERs."

Ralena shook her head, "It can't be all of them," she said. "The SOLDIERs are a given, but if he is turning them with the use of Jenova Cells not everyone is compatible."

"Are you sure?" Tifa asked.

Ralena nodded darkly. "I've seen failed experiments, trust me on this."

"Even if half of them are compatible," Cait Sith said, sounding oddly serious, "They will also enhanced beyond a normal human's capabilities." As they ate, they discussed the implications of this and what it meant. After clearing out the food, the papers that Yuffie had copied ended up scattered about the table. Apparently in transit things had gotten mixed up.

They milled around, matching photos to reports and passing papers about. Eventually, Vincent noticed something, and after studying it a moment longer, he got Ralena's attention. The empath looked up at him from where she was across the table, he handed her a photo of the Nibel Reactor, the remains of the Jenova plaque on the wall among the twisted metal telling her exactly what room she was looking at. "I wonder if you notice the same thing I did."

Her brow furrowed as she tried to find what Vincent was talking about. Suddenly, the color drained from her face and her joy from earlier was buried under a growing horror. "Where are they?" she whispered hoarsely. She met Vincent's eyes and he nodded grimly.

"Where's what?" Cloud asked.

She looked up at Cait Sith and Yuffie. "Do we have any before pictures of this room, from Mt. Nibel?"

"Umm… sure gimme a minute," Yuffie said, shuffling through the piles of photos she had been sorting. "Here." She handed the photo over to Vincent, who was closer to her.

He put it down next to the 'after' photo. One had three rows of pods, fed by massive tubes with a stair case up the middle, leading to the door to the Jenova chamber. In the other half of the wall to the Jenova chamber was gone and the twisted metal of the pipes had become disconnected and lay all about the room. Ralena went digging through the papers, hunting down other photos of the container room, to see if there were other angles of the destruction. "What's missing?" Vincent asked the group.

As he expected, Cid saw it first. As an engineer it made sense that he would notice missing parts. "Where're the pods?" He said out loud.

"Wouldn't they be blown up too?" Yuffie asked.

"No, he's right," Cloud said, "Those pods are inches thick, with that much pipe intact they should still be there."

"At the very least there should be large chunks of debris from them," Cid agreed.

"Do you think ShinRa removed them?"

Vincent shook his head, "I doubt it, they were all there right before Ralena and I met you."

"What are they anyway?" Yuffie asked.

"Those are Mako condensing tanks," Cait Sith supplied, "used to make Materia, but they look modified... and huge."

"They were not used for Materia," Vincent said.

"Inside were some of Hojo's experiments," Ralena elaborated, thinking back to the voices she had heard while in that room. "I think they were people, but they didn't look like it after all of the Mako exposure."

Cait Sith blanched, he knew the kind of levels that went into those, "He put people in those!?"

"Are you surprised?" Vincent deadpanned.

"It doesn't have to be surprising to be horrifying," Cait Sith defended, "The levels in those pods is _at least_ ten times that of a SOLDIER's treatment, and they get two hour increments with a week in between for about two months, then annual refreshers. These things must have been in there constantly for…"

"Is that all SOLDIERs go through?" Eyes turned to the redhead and she realized that, again, she had accidently spoken her thoughts aloud. At this point Yuffie was the only one who hadn't seemed to notice, probably because she hadn't been paying attention. "I mean.. That's only eight and then once a year, right? I mean, I know they have training too but…" she trailed off at the expressions around her.

Cait Sith seemed the most horrified by this casual nature of her comment, presumably because he knew the most about it. "Ralena…" he started carefully, "How many Mako treatments have you had?"

Given the concerned looks of some of her friends, she really did not want to say now. "It was so long ago it probably doesn't matter…" she said in a poor attempt to deflect.

"How many?" Cait Sith asked again, in an oddly paternal tone.

She was suddenly shy, but it was against her conditioning to not answer a question asked with any level of authority, "Only… once a month… usually." She didn't know how long each session lasted, or the levels she was exposed at… and sometimes she got an extra one a few days later. No wonder she was able to keep up with Cloud and Vincent. She knew she had usually been under for close to eight hours but she had no way of knowing how much of that time was in the Mako pod.

"For how long?"

She thought about it, she didn't really have a good sense of time back then. One of her arms went across her waist and a hand rested over the scars there. Red eyes narrowed at Cait Sith. "Pretty much… the… whole time."

Cait Sith could not help his reaction, "That's at least a hundred!!"

"Are you fucking kidding me!?" Cid practically yelled in surprised outrage.

Ralena tried not to visibly recoil. She felt like a scolded child, even if they weren't really yelling _at_ her. They were reminding her why she rarely mentioned anything about her "upbringing." She had always known it was bad, but people seemed to get angry when she was so casual about it.

"Everyone, let's focus on the job at hand," Cloud said sharply, catching everyone's attention and changing the subject, "Right now we need to see what else might be missing from the other reactors and figure out what it's all for. Cait Sith, you have the best understanding of what is supposed to be in there, so look over the reports first. Most of the rest of us will have to go by the images." Ralena gave Cloud a thankful smile and took a stack of photos from Yuffie to help pair off before and after photos.

After a minute, Cloud had enough of the glances shooting across the table, and the discomfort leaking off of the empath beside him as she tried to pointedly stare at the papers in front of her. "Hey Ral," he said, "I think Sable has something wrong with his foot. Would you mind going down to the stables to check on it?" She looked at him, Sable was fine, but still she took the out, thanking him quietly and quitting the room. When Cloud looked back from the door he noticed a pair of red eyes still lingering on the exit. Catching Vincent's eye, the blonde gave a slight nod and tilted his head towards the door.

***

When Vincent entered the chocobo stables on the ship Ralena's back was to him. She was petting Iris and the bird was cooing at her and nuzzling against her. The kind of comfort that a loyal pet can offer.

Now that their feelings were known to each other, Vincent found it easier to find the right course of action to comfort her. There was no longer an invisible barrier requiring him to have to find words, when simple physical contact could do so much more. A hand landed on her shoulder, she turned to him, then looked down. There were no tears, but the fact that the conversation in the operations room had affected her was evident. He pulled Ralena into his chest, wordlessly she leaned against him, resting her head against his neck she brought one of her hands up, clutching at the front of his jacket. "He's just worried about you," he said quietly after a minute.

She nodded.

"Does it ever come up?" she asked, "For you?"

"My clothes hide my scars. There are reasons I usually shower at odd hours," he said. He also was not nearly as approachable as she was. "I also do not speak random thoughts aloud."

She let a small laugh out at that, "I usually just embarrass myself that way…"

Again, silence settled in. "You have never asked me, either." Vincent said eventually, referring to his own scars.

She tried to pull herself closer to in him, and swallowed, "I don't have to. I know what that man is capable of."

Vincent's arms tightened around her shoulders and he kissed the top of her head. A soft cooing noise nearby had him look up. Iris stepped forward and leaned her head against Ralena's back. A soft chuckle came from the empath, "Yes, Iris, I love you too…"

***

Reeve felt like a heel. He shouldn't have pushed the issue with Ralena, at least not in front of so many of the others. The team knew she must have been young when Hojo got her, but none of them knew for exactly how long. None of them except for himself, and maybe Vincent, knew that she had been basically raised in the lab… well until he opened his big mouth. Anyone who could do math and was paying attention could figure that… so Yuffie was out.

Reeve thought back to a time when he got some liquid Mako accidentally dropped on his hand during a lab. He had been nauseous for days and the spot had ached for nearly two weeks. Over the years he had seen enough rookie SOLDIERs during their recovery periods to know how awful Mako poisoning could be, even when their treatments used diluted Mako.

How could she still be a functioning person after having gone in for that many Mako treatments? Begrudgingly, he had to admit it was due to Hojo's insane _genius_.

He didn’t understand how she could be so casual about the horrible things that were done to her. Like she didn’t think other people would see what was so wrong about it. Had it become so _normal_ for her?

He shook his head, of course it she knew it wasn't normal now. But sometimes she forgot. Like when you call a friend by a childhood nickname. Old habits don't die, they just go to sleep.

*****

"You're restless today," Hojo noted.

"Just taking better stock of my surroundings," Sephiroth stated as he stood by a glass faced cabinet, reading some of the labels on the various bottles and vials within it. He was in for one of his regular physicals, Hojo kept a close eye on all of the first class soldiers and their health. At the moment that was himself and soon would include Zack Fair.

The professor nodded, the place had been rearranged as some of the labs were getting renovated and he always appreciated an eye for detail. He looked at the paper in front of him, "Everything looks normal here. I have other things to attend to, you can let yourself out."

And that was it. Without so much as a goodbye, the man left the room. Now that he was alone, Sephiroth went over to the thing that had really caught his interest. There was a large pod with monitors and several pipes and wires attached to it. With the exception of a porthole the entire thing was encased in a coated metal, probably to keep in radiation. Aside from its size, the fact that the lights inside kept turning on and off at regular intervals had caught his attention. Looking at the monitor he saw an indicator switch from 'OFF' to 'ON' as a timer flipped to zero and back to 2 minutes. It was a Mako radiation treatment, that much was obvious. The chambers for SOLDIERs had always been transparent before, some mix of glass and radiation blocking material. This coating seemed thicker, and the monitors verified that the levels he was reading were dangerous for normal people, perhaps it was a new process for upcoming SOLDIERs? With the lights off earlier and his angle from across the room, he barely made out a shape within.

Sephiroth looked inside the porthole.

He wanted to vomit.

That was no SOLDIER in the pod. It was someone else. Even unconscious, with the breathing mask in place and the green light making her hair appear black, he knew her face.

The monitors told him that Ralena was unconscious, even so she looked to be in pain. Her brow was furrowed slightly and her mouth was set in a hard line. He found himself looking over the screens and the clipboard on hand. Trying to understand what they were doing to her, with Hojo there was little point in trying to find out _why_. The answer was always 'science.'

Given the radiation levels and time on the monitor, this was nearly what a new SOLDIER recruit would go through over the course of a month, and this was just _one_ treatment. Her Mako levels must easily twice those of an new third class SOLDIER.

The clipboard had a list of some of her previous and scheduled Mako treatments, it seemed to be every two to four weeks, some were more intensive than others. Another sheet was a checklist of nearly daily assessments and treatment records for the past week and a pending schedule into the next month_. _Various physical and mental performance tests, multiple injections of coded substances, pain tolerance testing _again_. Many of the mundane items, like physical training and injections had been signed off by lab assistants, but the more extreme treatments had been signed off by Hojo himself. Especially all of the injections of one specific code.

He thought about his visits to her. He always asked her how she was. She nearly always answered that she was "fine." Sometimes tired, rarely ok. This was her every day. She had complained about how some tests were worse than others, but she made it sound like a chore she didn't like. He hadn't thought it was like this…

Except for the scheduling of the Mako radiation treatments, this was not unlike his own "upbringing." His childhood was a thing he hadn't known was odd until Angeal and Genesis had befriended him and he began to hear stories of them growing up in Banora. "Parents" and "friends" had been words to him before then. They weren't just words to her, they were things she had remembered, if faintly. Things that had been taken away from her.

He put the clipboard back numbly, a few dates memorized. He wanted to be here after those. He found himself looking again into the pod. She would be tired, her body would be aching, if he came by tonight would she even wake up?

He clenched a fist and laid his forehead against the porthole, resisting the urge to rip the damn thing apart. How could he have been so stupid? Why should he have imagined that the tests and treatments she was enduring was anywhere near normal? He knew the kind of work Hojo did. She wasn't undergoing tested processes, she was a lab rat. "_Let's see what happens_," was part of her daily life.

A thought came to him, and he clenched his fist tighter, the leather of his gloves creaking slightly. The tests, they were… He couldn't be sure, but….

He cursed himself for being a fool. "I'm sorry," he whispered, possibly for the first time in his adult life.

*****

It was close to four in the morning when Vincent found himself in the bar of the Highwind. He wasn't there to drink, but to simply not be in his bunk and enjoy the view. The bridge had a better one, but there was always at least one person there, and for now he preferred to be alone. The room was dark, lit only by a few glow strips on the stairs and some edge lighting around the bar and tables. When leaving his room he had grabbed his jacket out of habit, but left it unbuttoned. He thought it a little funny that he would grab that then decide not to bother with his shoes or gauntlet.

For once, it was not dreams that awoke him, just the fact that he did not need much sleep. He had, of course, dreamed. It seemed it was almost impossible for him not to, but it was nothing noteworthy or especially odd this time around.

It was nearly an hour later when Ralena walked in, padding in on bare feet and wearing her usual tank top and star print pajama bottoms. They smiled at each other and she got herself a glass of water behind the bar and moved to sit by him.

"Nightmare?" he asked quietly.

She shook her head, "No, just… weird dreams." Her brow furrowed in confusion, "I'm still trying to figure out how Barret was playing guitar…"

Vincent smirked, after a moment he asked, "Did you know I was here?" It seemed strange to him that she would come here for water rather than the mess, which was closer to their bunks.

She ducked her head, tucking hair behind her ear, a little embarrassed, "I uhh… sensed your room was empty, so I came looking for you… I can go if you want to be alone."

He reached over and put his hand over hers before she could move to leave. "I've been alone long enough." She smiled back and sat down in the chair next to his, unsure if he was just referring to tonight. He left his hand on hers and they went back and forth between looking out the dark window and small talk. They both found it comforting that almost nothing had changed, this was just like any other conversation they had in the past, except now they were holding hands.

When they began to see traces of the sky lightening, Ralena yawned, "I may as well go back and get dressed." When she stood, he reached out and took hold of her wrist.

"If you're not going back to sleep, there's no rush." Vincent was not ready for her to leave. He tugged lightly on her arm and she blushed, it was time to change the formula a little bit. Turning back she and settled down across his lap when he guided her there, smiling timidly. She rested one hand on the back of his neck and the other on his chest. They held each other's gaze then she tilted her head down and their lips met gently. Again warmth and calm spread through her, she never believed that another person could make her feel so at peace. Their lips separated and she rested her forehead against his, eyes closed.

His right hand traced unseen patterns on her arm. Vincent marveled at the simple happiness he felt in this moment. He had almost missed this, almost let himself foolishly go on with a life where he could not hold her like this. The image of her unconscious in a mass of dented metal came to his mind and his arms tightened around her briefly. He had no intention of losing her now.

They shared another simple kiss then she adjusted and rested her cheek on top of his head. This was the first time they held each other like this. This was not for a ruse, or for warmth, or emotional comfort. This was just for the sake of it, for the sheer purpose of physical contact. She sighed in contentment. Just the two of them together in the darkened room, hearing nothing but each other's breath over the dull rumble of the engine beneath their feet.

He nuzzled into her neck, and she tensed for a moment as his breath brushed against her skin. He inhaled her scent and realized he had been wanting to try this since their first trip to Junon, where imminent danger and the foul smelling water on her skin sidetracked his thoughts so much he had completely forgotten about it. This time, he decided not to put off his desire. He moved the strap of her tank top aside with his nose, kissed the end of her collar bone and was rewarded with a surprised intake of breath. He smiled against her and did it again and again. Switching between tasting her skin with his tongue and kissing her, he inched his way towards her neck as her skin grew warmer and her heart beat louder.

Her fingers clenched at the back of his neck and the arm of his jacket. When he got closer she tilted her head to the side, baring her neck to him. She gasped when she felt his teeth at the base of her neck. It was barely a nip, but he felt her reaction as an unintended burst of surprise and pleasure that seeped into him through his lips. Vincent smiled at the sensation.

He wondered if he could make that happen again.

His hand moved up to bury itself in her hair, supporting and directing her head. She turned her body more towards him to give him better access. One of her hands gripped his forearm, desperate for some illusion of control. A lick, and a few more kisses found him at her ear. He brought her earlobe closer with his tongue and took it between his teeth. A slight moan escaped her lips, her grip tightened as he was rewarded with another euphoric tingle through his lips and tongue.

By now Ralena's breathing was labored. Slow, deep and heavy, as though trying to catch her breath. His mouth continued its journey across her throat. Now that he had her, weeks of ignored and pent up desires made themselves known to him. He was now on his own personal mission to make her want him, to make her cry out in ecstasy, to make her never desire another man. A hand slipped under the bottom of her shirt and made its way up her back, until it rested at the nape of her neck. The tips of his nails could still be felt through the glove and her back arched as he scratched down her spine. She squirmed delightfully in his lap, the hand she had at the back of his neck tangled tightly in his hair.

How in the hell was he doing this to her? A small part of her wondered, he hadn't even touched her anywhere explicit yet and every inch of her skin tingled. His breath on her made her shiver, and wherever his mouth touched left a trail of cooling skin against the night air. Her free hand pawed at the opening of his jacket, trying to tug it further open, but he would not remove his hands from her body, making it impossible for her to remove it.

He took her hand from his collar and kissed her palm, then the inside of her wrist before nipping it slightly then and working his way up her arm. When he got just above her elbow, Ralena's arm was outstretched and he took advantage of their position, pulling her back into a slight dip, moving his mouth down to her chest. The neck of her shirt was not elastic enough to allow him direct access to her breasts, so he started to tracing his tongue up the valley in between them.

As he continued to taste her skin he felt the a thrill of dawning anxiousness came off of her. Had it occurred to her that someone might find them here in this position? If he continued to push her would she try to stay quiet? Would she stop him? He desperately wanted to find out.

Her breathing became ragged and her back arched again. With her head tilted back he worked his way up her chest and along her throat again. When he got near her chin, Ralena pulled her head up and pressed her lips hotly against his. Her tongue sought entry and he gladly allowed it. Everywhere they touched he felt her intoxicating pleasure enter him. His lips, his tongue, his fingertips, all reported to him how much she was enjoying his attentions.

He had plenty more to give.

Their lips parted as he pulled her upright and worked his way along her jawline again. "Not fair," she panted.

"mmm?" It wasn't worth removing his mouth from her skin to respond. Vincent tangled his hand in her hair and pulled her head back again.

His continued attentions made it hard for her to string her words together. "I can't get… your jacket off … and… you're…"

"I'm what?" he teased, again biting lightly.

Ralena didn't know how to put it into words. Maybe she normally would have, but she was desperate to touch him, touch the skin of his back and his chest like he was doing to her. Anticipation of what he might do next clouded her mind. She was held captive by their position and the sensations coursing through her skin and down into her core. "You're… doing all the work," was all she managed to say.

Vincent smiled against her. That had been the point. It wasn't that he wanted to control the situation, he _needed_ to. He had started on a whim, with the intent to tease her a little, but he had let himself forget her nature and he underestimated his own awakened desires. They were feeding each other's lust through their skin. He _had_ to stay in control now, because if he didn't, she would go as far as he was willing in the moment, and he didn’t know if she would regret it later.

It was so hard.

Every pant, every moan and movement she made against him was wearing on his own restraint. He'd already fought off several impulses of taking her here on the floor, or the bar, or against the damn window. The more control he lost, the more he was drawing this out. The more he drew it out, the more she dug in her nails. Her breath sped up, her heartbeat hammered in his ears. The longer this took the more her desire and pleasure seeped into his skin and the weaker his will became.

He was trying to think about how to word his response, when she shifted, sliding off of his lap. He did not get the chance to react before she settled back down, straddling him. His pleasured groan was muted by her mouth as she pulled his face closer to hers. A kind of hungry desperation and eager lust filled her and channeled into him.

When she let his mouth go, Vincent looked at her and saw half-lidded, green eyes staring back at him over panting lips. Ralena kissed him again while her hands moved to free at least one of his arms from his jacket. With the stiffer fabric out of the way one of her hands slid down the back of his shirt and lifted the bottom of it, scratching her nails against his skin along the way. Her other hand slid down his arm, took hold of his wrist and brought it to her waist, lifting the edge of her shirt with it. She ground her hips down against him, and gasped against his mouth. She shivered at the sensation her own action had caused and all but tore his shirt over his head.

She had no idea what she was doing to him, how stimulating her touch was, he was getting drunk off of her and he could not bring himself to stop. His head was lower on her in this new position and licked the hollow of her throat before trailing down again. Now free of his jacket, his bare hand made its way under her top and traveled up her side trailing heat before moving to the front, taking the fabric up with it.

The airship pitched violently and they tumbled sideways to the ground, thrown together onto their sides, with Vincent partially atop her.

"Wha-" Ralena managed to gasp.

Bright red light filled the room and a panicked voice came over the speakers. "Red Alert! We've got incoming!" Vincent dropped his face against her neck and growled in frustration.

He couldn't decide whether or not he should curse.

*****

Cloud made his way into the hall, with just his pants, boots and sword. Tifa's door was open and she was already gone. He could hear Barret cursing through his door and Nanaki was pawing open Yuffie's door.

"I'm heading to the bridge!" Cid yelled, running off barefoot and zipping up his pants.

As Cloud neared the end of the hall, Ralena and Vincent were running in the opposite direction towards the bunks. Both were barefoot and she was in her sleep wear. As they passed him, Cloud spun, taking a few steps backward and called to the fencer, "Meet us by the deck! Don't forget your Range materia!"

"Got it!" she replied.

When Cloud got to the hatch for the deck. Tifa was already there, adjusting her gloves, as her sleepwear was boxers and a tight T-shirt, she didn't look too different from normal. Nanaki and Barret were not far behind Cloud, the other man had managed to get on unfastened boots and was pulling on a shirt. Cloud went over to a panel by the door and pushed a big button next to a speaker. "Cid, what have we got?"

The captain responded over the loud speakers, which could be heard across the ship. "Alright folks, it looks like we got a number of small biologicals. We can't out maneuver them in this terrain, but I'll see if we can't lose 'em with some speed. Everyone hang on!"

As the ship pitched and moved under they're feet, Vincent, Ralena and Yuffie appeared near the hatch, and everyone took the time to better tie their shoes, and check their weapons and materia. Vincent who had already been mostly dressed, was only lacking his cloak and sabatons. Ralena hadn't bothered changing either, she just grabbed her weapons, materia and shoes. The woman's pajama bottoms were bunched up and haphazardly crammed into the tops of her boots. Yuffie had gone a similar route, wearing full moogle print flannel pajamas, hiking boots and her arm guard. Just as they were all finishing sorting themselves out, Cloud saw two of the crewmen, Blake and Harris arrive with a rifle and pistol respectively. Compared to Avalanche, they were actually dressed, lacking only their crew jackets.

There was a violent bump followed by a shake of the airship and a shudder "Dammit," Cid cursed over the speakers, "One of them got into an engine, we're losing speed!"

"If you can't lose them, we're prepped to fight them on deck." Cloud called back.

"Alright, we'll bring her low enough that you can breathe before we slow down… We should be clear of the mountains in about one minute, so get ready!"

While Cloud spoke, Ralena and Nanaki started casting Barrier spells on everyone. "Barret, Vincent, give us some cover fire so we can spread out along the deck. Ralena you take port side with Tifa, Red you're with me on starboard. Range stay in the middle. Blake, Harris," He was nervous about including crewmen in this, but he could at least put them in the safest spot he could manage. "I want you to stay near the hatch. If it's bad enough that we need to fall back it has to remain clear."

They ran out onto the deck and one of the creature strafed across, forcing Tifa to roll to dodge under it. "Harriers!" She shouted as a warning. Native to the Nibel mountain range, harriers were streamlined, bird-like creatures with slim conical heads about the size of an eagle. It looked like a whole flock of them had come to play.

With the Highwind slowed down, the bird-like beasts began to swarm around the deck, shrieking and divebombing them. They may have been too fast for anyone to get a decent look at the details, but Ralena didn't need eyes to sense a difference. "Shit," she muttered before calling out. "These reek of Jenova!"

A barrage of fire left Barret's gun. "Are you tellin' me Sephiroth sent these!?"

"Not the time!" Cloud yelled, an arc of light leaving the end of his blade and barely clipping a harrier's wing. Using Range Materia was always an interesting experience to a melee fighter. It took its own, special sort of practice. Striking was a matter of intent as well as the motion itself. You had to put your will into it differently and the materia would project the force of your attack forward. This was easiest for Tifa, whose punches and jabs were straight forward as a small focused burst of energy. For Cloud, who swung the Buster sword, it manifested as an arch that flew in front of him and he had to be careful not to make it too wide, or else it could slice off in another direction. Also using a sword, Ralena's attacks were similar to Clouds, but she usually used smaller swings.

A blast of air whipped across the deck and pushed Nanaki back and into Barret. Now amongst the harriers were a few, larger wind wings, the same as those they had seen in the reactor.

"Cid calls these 'small'!?" Yuffie complained, shooting out a bolt of lightning. She was pretty confident with her weapon, but the idea of losing it off of the side of the ship did not sit well with her.

"Compared to the ship they are…" Barret muttered, before choosing another target.

Vincent exhaled and slowly and pulled the trigger. Focusing intently on targeting and counting his bullets. His left hand was in a tight fist as he tried not to think of the writhing beneath his skin.

Another harrier came in over the deck, Barret shot it at the same time Cloud struck it, the creature twisted in the air and landed in front of Vincent. At the close proximity of the corrupted creature, Vincent felt Chaos surge and his teeth start to lengthen. He gritted his teeth and quickly torched it with a fire spell, and as the flame took it he could feel the beast within ease back. He shot more flame at one coming in towards Ralena. As the fireball erupted before her, she cast her bright green eyes back at him for a moment, concern and worry making it evident that she felt what was happening within him.

"Burn them if you can," Ralena called out.

"What? Why?" Yuffie asked.

"Chaos will if we don't." Vincent clarified.

"You heard the man," Cloud grinned, "Kill it with fire!"

With the flying opponents swarming around the deck and the call for fire, Red XIII decided it was time for something better suited for this aerial battle came out. He used the newest summon that Cloud brought back from Fort Condor. The brilliant flaming bird flew out from the deck, grabbing one of the smaller harriers in its flaming talons, incinerating it in seconds. With Phoenix out, Tifa and Cloud followed suit with Ifrit and Bahamut.

The crewmen watched in awe as the summons danced around and under the airship, burning up the flying monsters or herding them closer to the ship within easy reach of Avalanche. They had gotten a few shots off, but they dared not aim as close to the their comrades as the more seasoned warriors were doing.

*******

"Good job, everyone," Cloud said when they came back in from the deck. "Let's clean up, eat and then meet up in one hour to talk about what this all means." The blonde looked up at Vincent, "I think we need to talk about your new limit too…"

The gunman nodded to Cloud and Yuffie groaned. The girl clearly wished that she could just go back to sleep as everyone made their way back down the hall towards the bunks.

At the tail end of the group Vincent took hold of Ralena's wrist and led her into a small side passage. He wrapped his arms tightly around her and she returned the gesture. Relief came to both of them in the embrace. Like all of their friends, they trusted each other in combat, but there had been an added edge of concern for the other could not be helped. In addition, they both felt how close Chaos had been to coming out in that fight. Despite the fact that the being had no ill intentions towards Vincent, the sheer power of the entity was intimidating.

Once they relaxed more against each other, he moved to kiss her. She accepted the gesture, but pulled back as he tried to deepen it. A little bit of embarrassment coming through. "Sorry," she whispered, "It's just we're in the open and… ummm…"

"Are we ok?" he asked, concerned that he had pushed the boundaries too far earlier.

"Of course! I just…" she rubbed her neck shyly, "the interruption was probably a... good thing?"

"You're not ready…?" his voice hid most of his disappointment.

"Not for where that was leading... It's a little… fast." It had not even been a full day since they had shared their first mutual kiss. Though she had to admit that if they had not been interrupted she probably would not have regretted it.

"I didn't intend for it to go that far," he admitted. Well, not at first. His eyes travelled down her neck and along the curve of her bare shoulder. Right now, he would have liked to steal her away to the unused executive bedroom on the airship and lose himself in the feeling of her. Like addict coming off of his first high, he desperately wanted another taste.

"You didn’t?" she smiled, raising a brow. "You seemed so in control..."

He smirked, brushing hair behind her ear and watching how the locks moved. "Barely." He may have been in control of her, but not himself. For the first time in a long time, it was not a loss of control that he was afraid of. He turned his attention away from her just long enough to check that they were still alone. A little bit of concern seeped into his expression, "I never asked before. Are you…?"

It took her half a second to realized he was asking if she was a virgin. "No," she laughed a little, "I was a teenage empath after all. But it's been a long time and a teen farm boy has nothing on you."

He smiled, mischief in his eyes, "He didn’t know what I know about you."

That caught her attention, and she smiled back, "Oh really? What's that?"

"Did you know," he leaned in, his voice low in pitch and volume, "if I'm paying attention, I can feel you through your skin?" There was a moment of confusion from her. He reached forward, resting his palm against the skin of her neck and ran his nails across the back of it. Her eyes half closed as he did so. A spark of passion illuminated his eyes, "I felt how much you like that."

It took a second for realization to hit her, her eyes widened and she stammered, "I what… you mean I… I didn't know I-" Suddenly she stopped and a suspicious look came over her face. "When did you figure that out?"

Warning bells went off in his head and he stopped himself from visibly wincing. This was an aspect of her abilities that he suspected she hadn't known about and he never brought it up before. He debated trying to mitigate by saying he had 'strong suspicions' rather than 'knowing.' Her green eyes weren't glowing, but if she caught him trying to downplay it she would probably just get more angry. "The crater," he said at last, "I was sure after we got knocked out."

She glared at him, her displeasure obvious even if he had not been touching her skin. "That was almost two months ago," she said flatly.

"Yes… I-"

She pulled back and his hand slid away. She was _trying_ not to be mad about it. "Don't you dare say you forgot," Whenever she was overwhelmed he always moved to touch her skin, either her face or hands. He had to have remembered. "I won't believe it." 

He had to word this carefully, but truthfully. "It would be more accurate to say that when we had down time, I didn’t think about it."

Green eyes bored into his for several long seconds. Then, after she took a deep breath she seemed to accept this explanation, but still wasn't happy about it. She looked away then back to him, head tilted expectantly. "Anything else about that I should know?"

He was reluctant to speak, the more he knew, the more annoyed she would be that he had not told her earlier. "I suspect you have to be in neutral…"

Her eyes lit up for a second then she crossed her arms. "You're lucky I know how sorry you feel," she huffed before turning to walk away, irritation flavoring her body language and the air around her. "I'm going to get dressed. We'll test it later."

He watched her go, disappointed at the farewell he had received. He had a feeling that "later" would be this evening at the earliest.

Well, Vincent found himself thinking, as far as first fights went, that _was_ pretty tame.

*******

The red head was in such a huff that she did not pay any attention to her surroundings as she climbed the ladder back to the their rooms. After she was gone, part of the shadows split into a grin. A girl in moogle-print pajamas stepped out and looked to the alcove across from her.

"Told ya so," Yuffie said, holding out her hand.

There was a sigh from the other shadow as crewman Harris dug into his pockets. "I really thought Tifa was going to make a move first…" he muttered. He handed over some money and turned back to the hatch.

He started in alarm as Vincent was standing there, not five feet away glaring at Yuffie, who smiled and waved innocently at him. The intense red gaze landed on Harris for a moment, who cowed quickly, then back to the shinobi.

"Took you long enough," she said. It was about damn time too. She'd been waiting for those two to seal the deal since they first went to the Gold Saucer… Well it was possible they hadn't got _that_ far yet, but that she was not going to bet on that.

"Not. A. Word." Vincent said tersely.

Yuffie pouted comically, "Aww… I was gonna get a cake, an' poppers, an' everything."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> • Sorry for the interruption folks! (I mean really, I know exactly where that would have gone). I had thought to make the thing that attacked the ship the Ultimate Weapon just so I could have Vincent wonder "Did this thing live to piss him off?" But it didn't fit for me...  
• I realized while writing this that Range Materia is probably how Sephiroth sent those beams at Genesis in the Crisis Core Cut scene... at least that is now in my head cannon. I also imagine Tifa yelling "HADOKEN!"


	31. Homecoming

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For Luck; On the Beach; Road Trip; How did this Happen?; Talk. Now; Logistics; Homecoming; Endurance; Snooping

The pair stood in a secluded corner of the airship, neither quite sure what to say. It was just a normal day in their life, Vincent was going out on a quick fact finding mission with Cloud and Cid to follow up on a lead and get some parts. The fact that the change in their relationship was barely a few days old made the separation seem more significant.

The only thing they knew for sure was that they didn't want anyone else to know just yet.

Ralena only had one other real relationship years ago and she had sabotaged it out of fear that her untrained senses had affected one or both of them. In retrospect, it was probably just teen bullshit and his small town mentality that didn't match her drive to leave. After all, he was one of three age appropriate partners for her in town at the time, and she had absolutely no interest in the other two.

Vincent reached over and took one of her hands, she squeezed it back. He hadn't done this much either, aside from Lucrecia his previous romantic endeavors mostly consisted of the occasional one night stand to satisfy his urges and a few early relationships where he learned that the job would not allowed for it. It was hard to trust someone when your job had an unpredictable schedule and involved finding and securing secrets.

Now she felt dumb for having spent anytime mad at him. "It's so stupid," she muttered, with a shy smile, "It's like I miss you already." He smirked back and nodded. A small laugh left her lips, "Just because I can read you, doesn't mean you have to stay quiet."

His smile broadened, and he debated drawing out the silence as he looked into her eyes. "It's only a few days," he said instead, "But I will endeavor to make it quicker."

She shook her head, "You'll have Cloud and Cid along to be impatient for you. You have to reign them in."

He let out a subtle, but dramatic, sigh, "I suppose you are right."

"It happens," she couldn't stop herself from grinning like an idiot. "It's cliché, but why don't I give you something for luck?"

He raised a brow and waited.

"I don't have much on me, so how about this?" She leaned forward and put a light kiss on his cheek. It tingled there slightly as she pulled back. Playing up his stoic nature, Vincent gave a slight, appraising, nod. His reaction earned him an unhappy response. "What's with that?"

He pulled on her hand, drawing her body into contact with his. He brought his left hand up to her face, the gloved palm cupping her cheek. "I prefer this," he whispered huskily, before covering her mouth with his.

She melted against him for a few seconds, letting the nervous warmth spread through her. It turned out he could be such a tease, and she was beginning to suspect that he just liked to make her blush. The cold, brass tips of the gauntlet gently scraped her jawline and a shudder went through her as they separated. "Oh yeah," she whispered in agreement, "That's definitely worth more luck." She smirked, "Maybe one more."

********

Several days went by and Ralena couldn't stay in the airship any longer. She wasn't nervous about Vincent and the others on the mission, it was something he called a "milk run." For some reason the knowledge that they would be back today and the anticipation of his return had her excited and nervous.

Vincent had called her last night, and that had made her ridiculously giddy. Especially since he didn't normally like to bother with the device. They only talked for about five minutes and a bit of it was silence, she got a strange sort of comfort just knowing it was him on the other side of the phone. When she returned to the mess even Yuffie noticed the improvement in her mood and grinned at her like a manic pixie.

In order to work off her nerves she decided to take Iris out for a ride, "Two hours, tops" she said on the way out, "Call me if you need me back sooner for the pickup. I'm just going to follow the coast north."

It was low tide, and the area here had a beach below a small cliff. This left a fair expanse of sand along the coast and allowed for a leisurely ride. With all of the time spent on the Highwind lately, Iris' idea of a "leisurely ride" consisted of a combination of sprints and trots. Ralena smiled at how energetic her mount still was, happy that she could take the opportunity to let her enjoy herself.

Ralena was getting to the point where she was about to turn around when the sound of propellers caught her ears and she slowed Iris down. It sounded somehow smaller, faster, not like the Highwind... The aircraft came over the ridge and she spurred the chocobo into a full run in the opposite direction. Of course it came from behind her. The ShinRa helicopter came in low to the ground kicking up sand. Sparing a look back she saw it drop multiple small vehicles behind her.

She smirked, urging Iris to go as fast as she could Ralena then turned her around towards the water. Now running over ocean she was heading back towards her friends, who were still miles away. Much to her surprise the vehicles were not motorcycles, which would have had trouble making the turn on the beach. They were goddam hoverbikes. They turned to go over the water as easily as she had.

They were going to catch up. There was no doubt about that. Iris couldn't maintain her speed for as long as a machine could. She turned Iris towards some rocks she saw jutting, pillar like out of the water. Darting around several of them, she heard an explosion as one of the bikes crashed into one, and a sputtering engine as someone else tipped theirs.

With a burst of speed and a flap of her wings, Iris jumped on top of one of the rocks, and Ralena called a bolt of lightning and struck out at one of the vehicles. The bolt struck and scattered over an invisible barrier over the rider. "Fucking magic barriers, really!?" she muttered, knowing full well that she would have done the same. As the vehicles circled, she pulled up more mana and hit the same bike with another, more powerful spell. This time it broke through the barrier and some sparks got into the vehicle and knocked the rider off of it.

The chopper came up alongside her and she saw someone with a strange looking gun aiming at her from the side. Iris jumped off of the rock and now they were headed back south, towards the Highwind. She was not likely to make it back before the vehicles caught up to her, but she would be damned if she just gave up. She drew her sword and slashed at a few of the riders as she rode past, only managing minor injuries on two, while a third fell off in his attempt to dodge.

Ralena raced over the water, she had passed a large rock outcropping with a tunnel through it on the way out. If she could get there, that would give her the chance she needed to take out the other vehicles without worrying about the people on the helicopter. She directed Iris toward the nearby tunnel, hoping there were some crags to hide in. If she was lucky there would be some giant creature that preferred the taste of ShinRa hoverbikes over chocobos.

Once inside she slowed her mount until she spotted a few rocky pillars that they should be able to hide behind. Ducked behind cover, she managed to get _Barrier_ cast on herself and Iris before the hoverbikes moved in cautiously. The powerful headlights made her pursuers easy to see and allowed the empath to pinpoint their location. Ralena closed her eyes and focused, trying to time her casting just right. After several seconds, she heard one of the troops call out, he had spotted the azure flash of Iris' feathers against the dull stone.

The troops came closer, calling for her to give up. She did not. A crash of thunder filled the cave and a massive sword came out of the darkness. The man in front fell off the hoverbike, a deep bloody gash across his torso. The other riders cursed as Odin rode out of the shadows on his six-legged steed.

In their panic the troopers raised their guns on the spirit, but Odin cut two more down before they could even open fire. She directed the summon to act swiftly and it had little problem finishing off those who followed her into the tunnels. With the last of her immediate pursuers taken care of Odin faded away and she took a few seconds moments to catch her breath and stash the summon Materia.

"Ready to run like hell, girl?" She asked. The chocobo let out a determined chirp as she adjusted herself in the saddle before urging her mount to into high speed. She caught a sight of blue sky and Iris ran up onto the wet sand that led to the south exit of the cave. As they crossed the threshold the world erupted into thunder and fire.

Ralena found herself thrown through the air and tumbling out onto the sand. The moment she got her bearings she scrambled over the sand to her mount and patted the creature's blue feathers gently. Iris cooed pitifully, but she was alive and intact, if not bloody. If she hadn't cast the barriers, Iris' legs probably would have been blown clean off. Ralena cursed herself for not thinking that fighting in the cave gave the people on the helicopter a chance to set up and wait for her. She repressed a growl of anger about the injury done to her pet. Ralena turned a vicious glare at three people standing on the beach, not far away.

There were two SOLDIERs standing on either side of a petite blonde in a Turk suit. The woman was tossing a small trigger device, likely used to set off the explosive, down into the sand. "Surrender," The Turk said, "You're not going to win this."

_"If you ever see me again, or someone wearing a suit like mine, run. It probably means that the company has sent us to retrieve you."_

To Hades with that.

Ralena eyed them, taking in the details of the woman and the men's uniforms. "Third Class?" She scoffed in a mocking tone, "I'm almost insulted." She'd never _technically_ fought a first class SOLDIER, but she was pretty sure she could at _least_ go toe-to-toe with a second. She eyed her three opponents, it was not uncommon for Avalanche to do two-on-one matches when they sparred. As the underdog to ShinRa Inc, Avalanche being outnumbered was inevitable.

"You heard the lady," said another voice. She glanced to her right and berated herself as she realized there was another SOLDIER sitting on a boulder about thirty feet away that she had failed to notice. He hopped off of the rock and drew his sword lazily. "She wants a challenge." Ralena cursed as she recognized the uniform markings, showing him to be a First Class SOLDIER.

"No way," the Turk said, indignant about the comment. "She's doesn't think I can take her. You three stand back, I've got her."

The Senior SOLDIER raised a brow. "Can you do it without killing her?" he said almost casually, but there was a level of seriousness the empath could sense. "This is a capture mission."

Irritated, the blonde responded, "I _know _that."

Ralena didn't wait for conversation to continue. She threw down an ice spell that ended up trapping one of the S-3s feet to the sand. "I am _not_ going back!" she yelled and rushed in at the blonde woman.

There was a spark of confusion at her energetic reaction. Maybe they did not know who had called for her capture. Maybe this was just to trim down Avalanche's numbers, but the red head had no doubts of where she would end up if she was taken. It might not be her first stop, but it would only be a matter of time before she ended up in Hojo's hands again.

Her eyes blazed green as she intended to put her opponents off balance with a spike of fear. The S-3s seemed to find themselves uncertain about attacking her, lowering their blades slightly. The Turk came rushing in before Ralena could take advantage of the lapse. She used her Mako given strength to leap over the woman and land behind the lower ranked SOLDIER on the far side. He parried the strike of her blade but did not expect the rapid follow up of a bolt spell.

The Turk may have called for a one-on-one, but Ralena was not going to risk a sucker punch. The SOLDIER almost got past her defenses and barely sliced into her sleeve while she took the time to throw a second lightning spell at him. 

He fell to a knee and blonde was on her again. The fencer backed up again, the dry sand slowed all of their movements, and she had to be careful of her footing. Ralena attacked again and the Turk blocked, armored gloves and throwing daggers protecting her hands from being cut by the blades.

Suddenly, magic washed over Ralena and scrambled her concentration. Her eyes flickered like broken lights and the glow went away. This momentary stumble gave the Turk the opening she needed to land a combination of hits against her, but she stopped after the second punch, and backed away. Ralena clenched her jaw. By now, she knew the effect that the _Silence_ spell had on her empathic senses, but she would not let it stop her.

The blonde Turk had a sour expression and she glared at the SOLDIER. "I _said_ I got her!"

"What?" The First said innocently, lowering a hand. "No magic makes it an even playing field, doesn't it?"

*******

Kunsel called Sadler and Church back and ordered them to heal up, but otherwise kept his attention keenly on the fight. If it looked like it got too far, he would step in. Otherwise he would let Elena self-validate her abilities. He watched the two women fight. The red head had an edge on Elena, longer reach and a bladed weapon naturally gave her the upper hand against the Turk. If he didn't know that Elena's suit was made of armored fabric and that she had armor on her forearms underneath he would not have let it get this far.

Since he had cast _Silence_ he did notice two things. The woman's eyes had changed color and she seemed to lose a bit of her edge. If she hadn't looked so desperate to not get captured, it might have made a significant difference. He also felt oddly calmer now that the woman could not cast.

There was a moment when the sand tripped up the fencer which allowed Elena to start to put a pin her. The woman broke out before Elena could secure it, she threw off the blonde and backed up quickly, getting herself some distance. It was obvious to him that she had practice breaking out of holds. For a few seconds the woman breathed hard, sand falling off of her. There was a frantic look in her eyes, she knew how close she had come to losing.

Kunsel's eyes went wide as the woman began to glow red. She darted forwards towards Elena with more speed then she had a moment before, kicking a fishtail of sand into the air behind her. Kunsel barely intercepted the blow with his sword. His golden eyes widened in the closest thing he had felt to fear in a long time. The woman's now brown eyes were blazing with a feral gleam of rage and desperation. He tried to push her back but the fencer just spun, trying to get around him. He was forced to go on the defensive as the woman's attention was set squarely on the suited blonde behind him.

Elena started to protest, "I said, I didn't need-"

"She's berserk!" the SOLDIER explained with a grunt, moving again to push the woman back. He had heard of these kinds of limit breaks, but he had never seen one before. Any SOLDIERs who developed such a thing were discouraged from using it and a special training regimen was put in place to reduce the chance that it would trigger. Their chances of capturing this woman alive had just dropped dramatically. "Restrain her, now!"

"But-"

"This fight isn't fun anymore, Elena!" If he had merely settled for passing Heidegger's Training Room test for a First Class, Kunsel doubted he would have been able keep up with the woman in this state. As it was, he put himself in a fully protective mode, the woman seemed to have a single minded target of the Turk for reasons he could not understand. If the _Silence_ spell were not on her he would know why. The woman's lips were moving, she was voicelessly yelling at them in her rage. "Hurry up and use the damn gizmo!"

He knew Elena was not happy about it, but she gave him the affirmative. He pushed forward, forcing the woman back to give the Turk the opportunity she needed. When she gave him the go ahead, he jumped back. Too focused on the SOLDIER to notice the objects in the sand, the fencer ran straight over them. The mine-like device burst into a mass of white strips of material that wrapped around the woman and tightened. Once it her legs were fastened together she fell face first in the sand. All the while she maintained a desperate grip on her weapons like a rabid animal.

The silenced woman was screaming as she rolled onto her back and fought against the specialized bonds. Kunsel watched her and frowned. He was not a lip reader, but he was certain that "not going back," and a few choice curse words were in her muted rant. He watched as Elena, also a displeased look on her face, chanted out a _Stop_ spell and the woman's movements slowed then froze. Her still form a monument of desperation and anger.

*******

By the time the _Stop_ spell wore off, they had the prisoner in the helicopter. The bonds had been removed, but she now had a pair of large cuffs sealed around her hands and forearms, in addition to being strapped in like the other passengers.

The woman's brown eyes, looked over her captors critically. On either side of her was the two Third Class SOLDIERs from the beach. Across from her was a blonde woman in a red dress with a high collar but a large open keyhole and heels that were definitely not appropriate for any kind of wilderness mission. Next to her was the Turk and then the First Class SOLDIER from the beach. Ralena's memory was fuzzy, but she knew he had held his own against her battle rage. Both women and herself had on headsets. She wondered briefly if the SOLDIERs could just hear over the sound of the helicopter or if they had something built into their helmets.

The woman in red watched her with predatory eyes. She was Scarlet, her name was so on point that even Ralena could remember it, but there was something about her that did sit not right with the empath. It was probably that manic spark in her eye that reminded her of Hojo. She remembered what Tifa had said about the woman, and what she had seen of her on the TV prior to the would-be execution. Before now, she thought that maybe things she had heard about her had been exaggerated.

"Hello," the woman said in a manner that reminded her of a snake. "Nice to see you've calmed down."

Ralena opened her mouth to say something, but given the lack of her empathic senses she was not surprised when no sound came out.

The woman's red lips spread into a wicked smile, "Thank you for helping me test my new toys," she purred. "Those cuffs have a Seal Materia in them, as long as they are on, you are effectively _Silenced_." Ralena gingerly tested her bonds, straining at them for a second. The woman's smile only widened in response. Ralena saw the blonde Turk glance at the higher ranked SOLDIER, there seemed to be something that made her uncomfortable. Scarlet leaned forward, putting a hand on the large cuffs as if petting it. "I can't wait to deliver you," she continued after a moment, "The accommodations may be different now, but I bet _he_ still has a room waiting for you."

Ralena didn't notice the body language of the others in the chopper change. She jerked violently forward, her forehead struck Scarlet in the face and the woman reeled back covering her nose. As if in a fit she flung her body against the straps that held her safely in the seat. Desperation gave her the strength to rip one of the shoulder straps out of the wall. The two lower rank SOLDIERs next to her moved to hold her down and she slammed one of them in the head with her the cuffs.

"Sadler!" The Turk said in alarm, as the Third tumbled to the ground. Behind her hand, Scarlet laughed like she was watching a vaudeville comedy routine.

Before another second had passed the senior SOLDIER had gotten out of his seat. One hand shoved her bound hands down into her lap and the other pushed on her forehead and shoved her head back against the wall. She tried to kick him, but he turned his leg to catch the blow. She stared up at him, eyes burning. _"Don't send me back!"_ her mouth said without sound, her lips continued to move, begging this man to let her go.

She saw the golden glow of the man's eyes through the visor as he pushed his lips together regretfully. He wasn't going to help her… he couldn't help her. He just met her, why would he? It took Sephiroth over a year to risk rescuing her, why would this SOLDIDER risk his career on someone he never met before. Never mind a member of the enemy party. She noticed the hand on her forehead begin to glow and heard a quiet, "Sorry," come from his lips before sleep claimed her.

*******

How the _hell_ did this happen?

When the Highwind picked them up Barret and Tifa were waiting for them on the deck. When Cid had cursed at them, asking why the pickup was so late, the pair made a point of not looking at Vincent. The anticipation the Turk had been feeling was replaced with a creeping dread.

"What's wrong?" Cloud immediately asked, eyes shifting back and forth between the two.

Squarely looking at their leader with a quick glance to Vincent, Barret was the first to speak up. "We… can't find 'Lena."

"Clarify that," the gunman had said darkly.

"She went out for a ride. After your call, we couldn't get her on the phone, we thought it was just because she didn’t have a signal. So we went to get her. We found Iris injured on the beach. We left Red and Yuffie there to do some tracking, but… there were definitely signs of a fight and some blown up vehicles. Cait's also looking into things on his side."

"How long?"

"At this point it's been at least four hours, no more than six."

That conversation had been over an hour ago. Now, Vincent stalked down the halls of the Highwind, agitated that he had almost nothing to do but wait for information to come in. He barely noticed the crewmen scattering at his approach. Given the vehicle wreckage it was probably the ShinRa that grabbed her. Sephiroth seemed to be using crater monsters and Vincent could see no reason for the insane general to take her, his actions so far indicated that he would have just killed her.

When it came to Sephiroth or the ShinRa, Vincent was not sure which was worse. If Sephiroth chose to capture her, it could only mean that she would end up with Jenova cells and the fears she shared with him in Icicle Inn would be a reality. There was a chance that Hojo would do the same and it made him feel sick.

A flash of Ralena burning before Chaos' hands ripped through his vision and he froze. He banished the thought but it was only replaced with the image of a teenage Ralena being electrocuted while strapped to a table.

With gritted teeth, Vincent slammed his hand against the wall, embracing the physical pain to push away the dark thoughts. Hand throbbing in protest, he continued down the hall to retrieve his target. He had no plans of waiting a second longer than he had to. Ripping open the door of a storage closet, he grabbed the object from its perch, far rougher than he would have otherwise and dragged it along behind him.

*******

12m ago

**Mom**: Talk.

12m ago

**Mom**: Now.

8m ago

**Me**: Can't. Meeting. 

8m ago

**Mom:** When? ASAP 

****

6m ago

****

**Me**: 2 hours, minimum.

****

6m ago

****

**Mom**: If sooner call.

****

****

"What do you think Reeve?"

****

He looked up and sighed. "I still don't think it's a good idea," he said, as he had been saying for over a week now. "If you want the Sister Ray to pull from all SEVEN reactors_,_ we'll have to double check _all_ of the power conduits."

****

"But can you do it?" Scarlet asked from the screen. She was in Junon, checking in on the cannon move. Reeve was just happy he didn't have to deal with her in person today.

****

"Yes," he answered reluctantly, "Depending on the time table…"

****

"Then what's the problem?" Heidegger asked.

****

He sighed, "The problem is that the increased power output will also result in a larger blast and therefore a larger shockwave. Probably capable of shattering glass for _miles_. There is a reason that Junon has _blast shields_ built into it. Have you considered that as the Head of _Public Safety_."

****

"Are you telling me that your city plan won't protect the people?"

****

Reeve gave him a tired, deadpan response, the kind reserved for people who did not realize they were idiots. "The plans for Midgar didn't include having a massive Mako Cannon in the middle of sector 7."

****

"Gentleman, please." Scarlet interrupted , "I'll have my people calculate the new shockwave distance, and get it to you so that you can make your preparations." She purred.

****

Reeve's phone buzzed again, be he didn't bother to look at it this time. He'd given Avalanche a phone number he purchased and put under his mother's name and routed through a dummy account. That way they could at least message him directly without him getting caught. When the text messages had come through for an emergency earlier today, he hadn't expected it to be about one of their own members being abducted. He assumed this influx of new messages was because Cloud and the others had been picked up. Still, he had already told them that he would report back as soon as he could. He was concerned too after all… but he had a lot of things to worry about.

****

"How much power do you expect this to take, Scarlet? It will probably black out the whole city from how you are talking about it."

****

She smiled like an addict with a paycheck, "As much as you can give me, Reeve."

****

He leveled his gaze at the woman, "As much as I can give you, or as much as I can give you _safely_?"

****

Rufus spoke up at this point. "I want the reactors to still be able to operate once this is done. Give Scarlet a few numbers at different power levels, I want weapon power and shockwave estimates for each of those. If the plants have to be shut down briefly we will deal with it and have M&C make the appropriate announcements. But I don't want the reactors _broken, _they need to be back up within 2 hours."

****

Reeve was relieved that someone else in the meeting had at least _some_ common sense. "Why are we moving the cannon anyway? Is it because of the reactor attacks?" Not like the Sister Ray would be useful for something like that.

****

"Let's not forget the giant monsters, Reeve." The woman said with a strange lilt. The way she said his name set his nerves on edge.

****

"Yes, but why leave Junon unprotected? Isn't there another sea bound one out there?"

****

"There are more people in Midgar," Rufus said plainly. "The Dragon Weapon and the White Weapon are a threat here as well. It is faster to move the cannon we have rather than attempt to build a new one." Reeve was sure that Rufus had other plans he was not sharing.

****

****

*******

****

Reeve rubbed his forehead, a headache was coming on. He was scrambling to find information that just wasn't within his reach yet. He knew that, but still he looked in vain. He had to at least verify if it was ShinRa that took their empathic companion.

****

He was almost certain it wasn't Sephiroth. There was no reason for that to be the case. It had to be ShinRa, even if he didn't know why yet… He had scrambled to get out requests for information before he went into the meeting about that damn Mako Cannon. Now that he was back to his office, he gave his meeting notes to Grace, his secretary, so that she could write up action items he didn't have the time to worry about yet.

****

Then he took time digging through deployment schedules and flight plans that had been delivered to him while he was away. Things that seemed innocent enough unless you were looking for something specific. After pulling at a few threads and cross checking he was armed with a scrap of news, he was sure it didn't count as good or bad, he could contact the others with it at least. Going to his control terminal he brought the Cait Sith unit on the Highwind online. He noticed a small indicator on the screen that showed it had been moved since he last went offline.

****

The screen came on and he nearly jumped out of his seat. He followed that up by cursing himself for not seeing this coming. Vincent was sitting across from him, crimson eyes glowing and staring straight into the camera in such a way that Reeve felt like he was actually being seen. He could only imagine how long the man had been sitting there, he had the patience of a mountain.

****

"_Where. Is. She._ Cait Sith?" It was the quiet, pointed, scary tone of voice that set goosebumps along his skin. He had taken the Cait Sith unit into the on ship armory. In the low light the suggestions of many weapons behind him suggested that bodily harm would have met a bad answer… if Vincent had thought it would do any good.

****

"I don't know yet," he said, honestly. Red eyes narrowed at him. "I'm pretty sure it was ShinRa though. I found a flight plan for a transport chopper out of Costa Del Sol that would have gone near where the Highwind was, and returned in relatively short order."

****

"Where is it now?"

****

"It's already docked back at the Del Sol base, but another, faster aircraft left shortly after that. If she's on that second aircraft then it should have already arrived in Junon. That kind of thing can't land in Midgar, but it's a short hop by chopper to the tower at that point. So she could be in either place." A Turk would have been deployed for this kind of pick up, that was why Reeve had looked for flight logs. Secrets didn't escape Administrative Research unless they wanted you to know. Or you went through other sources. He quickly checked the passenger list, half of which was redacted.

****

"Is she still in Costa Del Sol?"

****

Reeve sighed and was very happy that he didn't have to tell this to Vincent in person, he felt like he was being interrogated. "As a former Turk, you know these things take time. I also don't have the same clearance to poke through records carte blanche without having to cover my trail. I haven't seen any prisoner intake forms from the Del Sol base, but those guys are behind on tech and it could take days for me to have a chance to see a copy of that digitally."

****

There was a few seconds of silence where Vincent stared into his damned soul. "Give me the information I need to call them. I will find out." He was never this intense before. There were hints of worry and fear for their comrade, but most prominent was a deep seething rage that glowed in his eyes. What could have made him-

****

Oh, shit.

****

Reeve could have slapped himself. How could he have forgotten about goddamn _Hojo_!? He must have seen Ralena on the Highwind, even if briefly. "Did Red XIII and Yuffie find any good information at the location?"

****

"An explosive injured Iris, then she fought two people while another two watched."

****

Reeve knew that, right now the Turks were spread thin, so if there had been four there. "Some SOLDIERs might have been there… I might be able to find out what's going on. But it'll take some time, I'll keep you up to date."

****

"Please do." There was no politeness in his tone only the unspoken promise of the violence that was soon to come to anyone that stood in his way.

****

****

******

****

****

Ralena prowled the wall of the cylindrical glass chamber that she woke up in, trying to shake off the fatigue from the multiple _Sleep_ spells used on her earlier. Seemed Hojo was smart enough to assume that she wouldn't be a willing participant this time. She had a lot of headaches to look forward to, she had already decided she would do her damndest to not be a willing participant.

****

She knew this room, this was where Hojo had shown her and the other children in the project some of the creatures he had created. She looked out the glass and could see patchy images of children in scrubs looking inside with fear on the faces. The image of a lab coat and glasses stood behind them. As a child she had nightmares where she awoke in here, either as an intended meal or as the latest experiment. As some chimeric creature with fur and feathers and scales. Seeing Vincent remain himself despite the transformative nature of his limit break made her feel less fearful, at least of what Hojo could do to her.

****

Jenova was another story.

****

A figure walked through the vision, but it didn't change much. He was still a lab coat and glasses, only now the body within it was more solid. Hojo walked up to the glass and smiled at her. "Welcome back, Red III."

****

She sneered at what he called her. She wouldn't bother to remind him of her name. He had likely long ago forgotten it, and he wouldn't care to use it anyway. Green eyes glared at him, but she did her best not to actively use her ability right now. She did not need it to read this man, she knew him far too well. He was pleased and excited to see her in way that would give her no comfort.

****

"Scarlet said you were rather… animated during your capture, have you nothing to say?"

****

She turned away, trying to pretend that it was because she chose to, rather than because she couldn’t keep eye contact with him. "Nothing you would care to hear."

****

His smile widened into a grin, "Good, you remember your place then."

****

She bristled internally, she wanted to be anything other than the obedient subject she had once been. If that meant keeping up with some of inane chatter after she found the guts to speak then she would do that just to piss him off.

****

"I checked the visitor reports for Nibelheim. Tell me," his face suddenly became unhappy, and his voice bitter, "What did you say to Valentine to get him to leave, hmmm??"

****

At the mention of Vincent, and the obvious sign of distaste from the speaker, a little of her fear ebbed away. For the first time in her life she gave him a sickly sweet, grin. "All I had to do was mention _your_ name Hojo. He can't wait to see you again and he's got a bullet with your name on it."

****

"Hmph," was the non-committal response, he glanced away and pushed his glasses further up the bridge of his nose with a single finger. A sure sign of irritation. In that moment she realized she had expected to be more afraid of Hojo then she was. Was it that time and her own growth made her realize that he was just a man? Was it that the instinctive horror she felt in the presence of Jenova just so overwhelming that her fear of him was tiny by comparison? She'd assumed that after the shock of seeing him in Junon she would feel the same now, but at that time she had the fear of being recaptured, a fear that was pointless now.

****

Now looking at the man, she couldn't help but think of the fact that rescue would come. It would take time, but she had no doubt that Avalanche would rescue her, and Vincent never failed a mission. If she could find a way to manage it herself, she would. The rescue from Junon took a week to plan and prepare, so she imagined she would have to hold out at least that long.

****

Hojo seemed to have put his thoughts of Vincent aside and decided he had more important things to ask about. "It's obvious your health is good."

****

"It is," she said, trying to be casual about it.

****

"What happened to you at the crater? It looked like you had a similar reaction to Strife."

****

She held her tongue, but again looked away. She had hoped she would be strong enough to stare him down, but clearly years of abuse was hard to shake off. Even if she was probably able to snap him in half like a toothpick. Well, he might be more resilient than that, maybe a pencil.

****

He spoke again, with a harder tone, as though he were repeating a command to a disobedient dog. "Answer the question, Red III"

****

The old fear of reprisal oozed up from the past, she found herself compelled to answer him, but she did not have to give him a good, or honest answer. "I don't know, there were too many unique factors."

****

"What were your symptoms?"

****

"They were what you saw," she answered, unhelpfully. "It started small, but grew steadily worse over the hours we spent in there."

****

"Do you have any ideas as to the cause?"

****

This time she answered him with silence.

****

"Oh, being reticent, are we?" Hojo chuckled, cruel humor in his voice. "Then I suppose I'll just have to run some tests of my own until I find out. We have so much lost time to make up for, I'll need to get a new baseline after all these years."

****

Dread rose up in her chest, she knew what that meant, which tests would be included and most of them were not pleasant. Hopefully he would be busy enough with other work that she wouldn't have to go through the full ringer right away. Strength and endurance tests she might comply with, only because she could not imagine a forceful option would be remotely worth the satisfaction of not being cooperative.

****

She would do her best not to use her abilities in front of this man, if he got a read on it, who knows what procedures he would devise next. Given their unpredictable nature she was unsure of how long she could hold out.

****

"Which reminds me," he started, as if it was a thing he would forget, "How _did_ you escape all those years ago?"

****

She grinned, feeling particularly vindictive, unsure how much of it was because she really hated Hojo and how much was just her low-level empathy caused his nature to rub off on her. She wanted to see how the bastard took this news. "You won't have to fix your security for it. It's unlikely to happen again."

****

"Oh?"

****

"Besides, it must be hard to plan for First Class SOLDIERs, and from what I've seen ShinRa doesn't make them like they used to."

****

Hojo scoffed, "Really? SOLDIER Fair managed to get you out? I'm surprised, he was never that subtle."

****

"Not Zack," she said smugly, as Hojo went still. "He never knew about me." She did not have to say it. Crazy as he was, Hojo was a smart man. When she was rescued from this hell, there were only two First Class SOLDIERs in the entire program and they both knew it.

****

It was the first time she had ever seen her tormentor with an expression of sheer disbelief. "What?"

****

So he _could_ feel something other than pride and disappointment. "It seems that apple fell rather far from the tree."

****

His surprised turned to a more familiar one of displeasure "Valentine still doesn’t know when to keep his mouth shut, does he?"

****

In her mind, she remembered a gunshot and saw a man in a dark suit fall to the ground, her first vision of Vincent, before she ever met him. She shrugged, acting casual, "I also did a bit of reading in Nibelheim, seems Dr. Crescent regretted a lot of choices she made."

****

The look of anger in his eyes should have frightened her.

****

****

*******

****

****

Sephiroth was walking down the hall in the Science Department for one of his standard checkups. To one side of him was a long bank of one-way mirrors that looked down on a gym used for benchmarking. Sephiroth had been in it many times as he had grown and climbed the ranks of SOLDIER. Seeing Hojo standing at a terminal and looking into the room he walked up to meet the man before looking into the space below.

****

"Begin," Hojo said into the mic.

****

A streak of white with red hair bolted across the room.

****

She wore a simple white tank top, white sweat pants and sneakers. He noticed a few leads attached to a small pack taped to her back. Ralena sprinted across the room with as much effort as she could muster, barely stopping before the wall, turning and running back. The professor was looking at the readouts on the terminal before him. She had gone three rounds up and back before she started to slow down, but still didn't stop.

****

"What is going on there?" Sephiroth asked. He knew the windows were one way mirrors, if she happened to look, she wouldn't see them.

****

"Endurance testing," Hojo answered without looking up.

****

"It almost looks like she's having fun…" If he had a chance to visit her tonight, she would be in a good mood, if tired.

****

"This specimen is a stubborn one, but she likes pushing her limits, it makes her an excellent test subject at times."

****

Sephiroth had an instantaneous urge to snap the professor's neck, and was surprised by it. While he had little love for the man, he had never felt hatred for him before now. It was a good thing the man was intent on the data before him, otherwise the glare Sephiroth was giving him would have been cause for scrutiny. Ralena ran up and back several more times until she almost stumbled from fatigue. "That's enough sprinting Red III," he said into the microphone, "Gibbs will get you on the treadmill for long distance." He let go of the intercom button. "What do you think of the subject, Sephiroth?"

****

He made a show of looking at the readings on the monitor which included results from the previous tests for comparison. "From what I can see she is at least close to physical peak for sprinting." He kept his voice carefully even. "What’s her strength like?"

****

"Ten percent above average for her age and gender, but adolescence has made her unpredictable so we don't trust her with equipment right now. Only bodyweight exercises, we suspect her limit would be higher otherwise."

****

The silver haired man pretended to be confused. "Is she a SOLDIER candidate?"

****

Hojo chuckled, "Sadly, no. For the purpose of this experiment the subject has no combat training."

****

"That's a shame," Sephiroth said honestly. What he wouldn't give for an excuse to get her out of the direct control of the science department. Even if that would result her dealing with being the first female in the program. "Her physical capabilities are impressive."

****

"I'm glad to hear that from you. Over the next few years we will be comparing her numbers to SOLDIERs of all levels."

****

_The next few years? _

****

_"_Currently there are a few areas in which she is above the average S-3 SOLDIER after they have recovered from initial treatments. It may result in a modified method once we can be sure of the factors."

****

"Once you can be sure? This project isn’t to improve the SOLDIER enhancement process?"

****

Hojo chuckled, "No, SOLDIERs are a useful metric. If we can get improvements out of this it is just a side benefit."

****

"What is the experiment then?"

****

The smaller man smiled, almost proudly, "Unfortunately, I cannot go into detail, but I will say it is a comparative study."

****

Questions ran though Sephiroth's mind. He wanted to know the purpose of this experiment. What was Hojo hoping to accomplish? If he knew that, then maybe he could either help her sabotage it or achieve it. If she met his expectations she would not be completely free, but she could perhaps not be locked in the Science Department.

****

"I know Lazard has kept you busy since the desertion, let's get your check-up done." Hojo said, walking off without waiting to see if Sephiroth was following.

****

"Of course," Sephiroth said, his green eyes lingering on the girl getting starting on the treadmill. Still would Hojo ever let her go? She had been here so long, and Hojo could be oddly sentimental when it came to his "specimens."

****

****

*******

****

****

Elena had taken all of the prisoner's gear. Her bag, weapons, materia, greaves and bracers. Scarlet had bitched about it, but Elena insisted that it was protocol, and would not budge on it. Especially since Scarlet wasn't going to allow her time to talk with the woman. Not that the prisoner would have been in a talkative mood.

****

She closed her eyes as she remembered the look of horror on the woman's face when Scarlet had mentioned bringing her back to Hojo. Even bound as she was, the red head seemed ready to jump out of the aircraft if it meant not going back. They had to keep using _Sleep_ and _Stop_ spells on her on the trip back, every time she came to she struggled to escape. Because of that Elena also had to keep the SOLDIERs on hand the whole way. They were the only ones who could react quickly enough to restrain her again without shooting her or letting her injure herself. As soon as they got back to Midgar and the prisoner was strapped down to a stretcher, Kunsel put her to sleep one more time then had stalked off with Sadler and Church hot on his heels.

****

Now Elena was snooping through the woman's phone. She told herself that it was work. Getting the phone numbers of the other members of Avalanche so that she could pull call records if she wanted. There were a number of missed calls and texts. Every contact in the phone was entered as nicknames, probably someone in Avalanche wanted some plausible deniability as to who anyone was, even if the names made it obvious if you knew the group.

****

Yesterday**  
Bar Brawler: **Got a call for pick up. ETA?

****

Yesterday  
**Bar Brawler**: Are you that into the ride? :)

****

Yesterday  
**Bar Brawler**: Coming to get you. Hope U R on the beach like you said.

****

Yesterday  
**Bar Brawler**: We found Iris, are you OK?

****

Yesterday  
**Forest Bandit**: U OK?

****

Yesterday  
**Forest Bandit**: PLZ call us!

****

Yesterday  
** Forest Bandit**: Where R U?

****

Elena frowned and went to the voice mails. Not many there before the ambush. Judging by the timestamp there was one from when she was out riding. Given that the phone was in a saddlebag she probably didn't notice the missed call from "Red Ryder".

****

Elena clicked to listen.

****

There was a second of silence at the beginning, with just a little bit of background noise, the caller was outside somewhere. "_You must be busy_." The voice was male, deep with a hint of gravel in it. There was a light chuckle, "_Or you forgot to charge your phone again. We just finished up. I'll see you soon._"

****

That was it. But there was obvious meaning behind the words. Disappointment at first, anticipation at the end. It was the opposite order about how Elena now felt about this job. She was happy to prove that she could be as capable as her seniors, but now the results made her feel a little ill.

****

She wished that she had failed in their mission to pick the target up. It was very unlike a Turk to think that way, she thought… Then she remembered that it wasn't.

****

"_Sometimes our job means doing things we don't like,_" Tseng had warned her on the first day, as if it was fresh in his mind. It was only a day after the plate fall. "_You have to find your own way to live with it. You will have doubts and regrets, the important thing is that you get the job done._"

****

Elena tortured herself a little more. She listened to a message from "MaTnPaT." A maternal voice with a country accent asked her to call when she had time. They knew she was busy, "but it wouldn't hurt to let us know how you're doing."

****

Another message, this one from Forest Bandit, Elena recognized Kisaragi's voice. They had been captive of Don Corner for several hours together afterall.

****

"_Ralena, please tell me this is a joke! Where are you?_"

****

_"I think they loaded her into a flying machine over there_," said a male voice from the background.

****

"_If you went to get help, Iris is ok. We healed her up. Now come back!_" She sounded absolutely frantic.

****

"_Yuffie… she didn't walk away_."

****

"_No, Red! She's Fine!_" Now there was anger, she refused to accept what was going on. "_Ralena, where are you?_"

****

Elena shut off the message, and the Turk felt a little extra pain. She thought about the days after her sister and the other Turks disappeared. How many messages like that did Elena leave?

****

A tone filled the room. She straightened her suit and went to see who was wanting to talk to the Turks. She was the only option at the moment anyway. Reno was finishing up with the Cannon move, and Rude was still checking out the Corel Reactor Incident. She pushed the button that made the glass on the door turn clear.

****

She visibly winced at the sight of Kunsel, with the way he was standing and set of his mouth she knew he was glaring at her, even if the helmet obscured his eyes. She opened the door and he walked in, once it clicked shut the glass fogged over again.

****

"I wish you hadn’t brought me along," he said, keeping his back to her.

****

"You volunteered to help me out," she replied, not at all denying his concerns.

****

He took off his helmet and shook his head. "I should have known better than to go on a 'retrieval'… But you could have warned me."

****

"I couldn't until you signed on," she replied bitterly, "you know that."

****

He shook his head again. "After everything we saw in Nibelheim." He turned on her, anger and betrayal burning in his molten gold gaze. "How could you take me along to bring someone back to _Hojo_!?"

****

"I didn't know!" she all but yelled in response. "Scarlet went to Heidegger and he assigned me without even asking about the op. I thought she just wanted to test some new junk. As far as going after an Avalanche member… I thought she was gonna hand her over to Rufus, that he would user her as a bargaining chip!" She slumped down into one of the lobby chairs, realizing how cold she sounded, but being a hostage would have been better than going to Hojo. "I mean, I didn't even think Scarlet _liked _Hojo. Why would she do anything for him?"

****

She looked back up at Kunsel and saw that at least some of the anger had gone from his eyes. "So," he said, "What are we going to do about this?"

****

Elena sighed, "I've sent the report on up to Heidegger and the president. I don't know what to do except wait and see what comes of it." She heard the SOLDIER scoff and she nodded, "I know, Heidegger won't do anything…"

****

"Do you really think Rufus will?"

****

Elena shook her head, "I don’t know… There's a lot going on right now, with the Weapons and Reactor attacks… he doesn't have a lot of time."

****

Kunsel sighed, he couldn’t deny that the man was busy. This was another test for the president as far as the SOLDIER was concerned. Still, this woman was also technically an enemy, and if Elena herself did not know she was going to be handed over to Hojo, there was a fair bet that Rufus didn't know either. Assuming he knew much about the mission at all. "What about Reno and Rude?"

****

The blonde sighed, "They won't be back for a few more days at least… and I'm not sure something like this can be discussed on the phone."

****

The SOLDIER shook his head, "Well, we know one thing."

****

"What's that?"

****

"Hojo won't kill her on purpose."

****

"That's not very reassuring…"

****

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: If you are wondering what Kunsel is doing here and why he's so chummy with Elena, go see the Side Story: Hojo's Closet for more of that (https://archiveofourown.org/works/23903980)


	32. The Devil's Lab

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sore; The Kid's In the Hall; Starfall; Report; Damn Them; Nightmares; The Mana Machine

Ralena was sore from head to toe, and with good reason. Without the time he wanted to observe her himself, Hojo had a number of subcutaneous sensors implanted on her body. Despite the pain, she didn't regret provoking Hojo. Even if it had resulted in no anesthesia. It had been worth it.

She had seen the devil bleed, and her fear of him became a little bit smaller.

At this point she felt she should just be happy that he hadn't shaved her head… yet. And hey, at least technology improved enough that the sensors were small. She took a slow deep breath, trying not to move. She had held together so far. But this was only day one, thinking back about how Hojo did things when he was rushed… Well she would either be ignored, or it was going to be rough. She had little hope for the former.

Hojo had mentioned baseline tests. That meant the standard physical measurements, strength, agility, endurance and the tolerance ones. She shivered at the thought of what was to come and then winced as the sensors shifted uncomfortably under her skin. She could do this, she would not break. She had survived this for years as a _child_, she could handle this as a grown woman.

Still, a little comfort would be nice.

Stretching her senses, Ralena could only sense the two guards at the entrance to the cell block, with the walls between they were barely whispers to her. She curled up on the bed. There was the stark realization that for the first time in months she was really alone. There was no one she could see or feel that was a friend. If she counted time with just her and Iris, she had not been alone like this for years.

She briefly debated reaching out to see an echo of Vincent and herself in here, but she resisted it. Assuming it was the same cell, the last time they were here he had spent the entire time in pain from his injury. It wasn't worth seeing him like that, no matter how well he had hidden it.

Ralena did her best to curl up and get what sleep she could. She would need the rest in order to keep her mental strength. Slowly she turned down her senses, not knowing if the sensors could detect such a thing. She did not want a sudden drop in activity to register on them.

Later, when the troops woke her, Ralena she discovered that those fucking little things under her skin were more than just sensors. She should have realized with how they were distributed along her muscles. They were able to let out electrical impulses, the point was not to cause pain. They were made to cause her muscles to seize up so that they could put restraints on her without fear of her fighting them.

Wasn't technology swell?

*******

Reeve dragged his feet as he walked down the hall towards Scarlet's office the next morning. It was almost lunch time and she had not gotten him those numbers yet and the woman didn't really respond when Reeve sent his subordinates to go talk to her. He looked down at his phone, messages from 'mom' were unread… he'd have to get to those when he was done, it wasn't like he had anything new to say. In his peripheral vision he noticed a group of people coming from the opposite direction.

He looked up and froze.

In the middle of four troops, dressed in white scrubs and hands bound behind her, was the missing red headed member of Avalanche. She looked irritated and tired, a few angry looking red marks dotted their way up her bare arms.

As they approached she looked up in his direction, green eyes met his. There was a strange, tired almost-smile that curved her lips. As if to say, "_Mondays, huh?_"

His phone -_pinged_\- again and he pretended to look at it. After a pause, he turned and followed the escort to the elevator. "Going down?" he asked. He knew the answer, he had seen the indicator light up.

The sergeant among them turned holding his hand up, "I would recommend waiting, director. This one is dangerous."

"I'm sure you men are more than capable," _of getting your asses kicked._ She turned part way and looked over her shoulder at him, her curiosity and confusion plain. He suddenly realized that he never consciously thought about what he was feeling in the moment, and wondered what she was picking up from him right now. "Where are you taking her?"

"The Training Room for danger assessment." In response to this Ralena looked down for a second and he caught sight of a slight smirk touch the woman's lips at that.

"To the SOLDIER floor, then?" he asked, surprised. They would be in for one hell of a surprise. While she was not Cloud's equal it was close, and given their differing fighting styles it was hard to determine if Ralena, Tifa or Red XIII was the second best melee fighter. "Well we certainly don't have to worry about her getting out then. Between you gentleman and the residents of that floor the rest of us will perfectly safe. She must be dangerous if you're taking her there." He wasn't trying to stroke anyone's ego, he was hoping that she would pick up on the warning.

The elevator arrived and one of the troops nudged her in the shoulder. They all walked in, Reeve last and she studied him as he entered. He hit the button for the 60th floor. For security purposes, it was as low as this elevator went.

Finally Reeve had news. Real, honest news of where she was, and from there he could something more solid. He eyed her slightly fuzzy reflection in the metal door. "I hope they're treating you well, miss."

She raised a brow at him then huffed. It looked as if she was about to say something when one of the guards nudged her in the side. "Please don't talk to the prisoner, sir," the senior guard said.

"Sorry, sorry." He said, pretending to be embarrassed at his actions. "What did she do to warrant such treatment?"

"This one took out at least six hover bikes on a chase and neutralized an S-3."

"Two S-3's," she corrected.

One of the guards jabbed her in the ribs for speaking, but she barely winced at it. Reeve had seen her take far heavier hits than that.

"Okay…" Reeve said, trying not to smile, "But what crime did she commit?"

"Sorry, sir, that's confidential."

Of course, the guards didn't know. They didn't need to.

The elevator chime went off and the elevator opened up to the secure inner lobby of the 60th floor. Reeve stepped out first. As the guards escorted her out Reeve couldn't help himself, he had to say it. "Good Luck, miss." It earned him some nasty looks from the half the troops, and a curious but good humored look from the empath. He hoped that she would remember it as at least one friendly face in this mad house.

Reeve watched them take her down the hall and around the corner. There was a short walk to get to another set of elevators that would be able to take them further down in the tower. Then he went to find himself an empty room to make a call in.

Unlike Scarlet and Heidegger, Reeve played a very different game when it came to company politics. They traded favors and intimidated people with their power, he traded secrets. Secrets were a lot like favors, but they were exchanged a lot quicker. He mostly dealt in tiny, innocuous, little secrets. Nothing that would look bad by itself. Hints and inferences, delivered in double talk and vague terminology, but his collection had grown mountainous over the years and implied very interesting things.

Reeve knew who was the nosiest and most talkative people were in most departments. He dialed a number on his phone and was happy that it was actually answered, SOLDIERs were not known for their availability. He had not picked up when he had called him yesterday. "What's up? You never call anymore," the other man said jokingly, even if he sounded a little strained.

"Sorry about that," Reeve joked, "There's about to be a show in your neighborhood, but I can't make it. I was hoping you could let me know how it turns out."

"Do you know where?"

"It'll be where you work out, the high-end one. I spotted them escorting the star from uptown, and it looks interesting."

"Will it be obvious when I see them?"

"I'm sure, a good looking redhead with a four man escort."

The response was a quiet, "oh."

That was an unexpected reaction. "Everything alright?" Reeve asked.

"yeeeaah… how do I put this? I was at her audition." Reeve easily caught the guilt in the SOLDIER's voice.

"Ah," Reeve said, at least that meant he didn't have to explain anything. "Do you know what genre the movie is?" He was beginning to stretch the analogy, hopefully the SOLDIER would pick up on what he was asking. After a second's silence he threw the man a bone, "I mean, is it a war movie, spies or a science-fic-."

"Sci-fi," the other man said quickly, distaste obvious in his tone. "Look… I better get a move on if I want a good seat. I'll talk to you later."

"Thanks, Kunsel. I look forward to your review." He clicked off his phone and stared at it for a few minutes. Self-disgust welled up within him. He may have been playing it smart, but he felt like a coward. If he had ever gotten his hands on her files from the Science Department would he be as willing to wait for Kunsel to call him back? 

A reminder went off on his phone and he looked at his to-do list. His lip curled up at the name he had put there. Screw it, he no longer had the energy to deal with Scarlet right now. He would just send one more email and copy the person he assumed was actually doing the calculations. In the meantime he had a few things that needed his attention while he waited for Kunsel to call him back.

*******

Ralena was escorted into a large familiar room, with metal wall panels and a lit white floor. Her back was to the observation window above the door. She knew that if a fully immersive program were up, the walls and windows would not be visible. She looked at the observation window at the opposite end. A few SOLDIER's were in there, either as security or to see who was taking up their room.

She resisted the urge to smile slightly, allowing flickers of a younger version of herself and Sephiroth to play across her vision. In the middle of the room, she saw a set of blades. They were not hers, but they were the same kind.

She let her senses come on passively, she wasn't afraid of this space, she had been happy here. In addition, the Training Room was full of years' worth of dedication and determination. People trying to be faster, better, stronger. This place was a beacon of strength.

"Pick up the weapons, Red III."

She looked over her shoulder at the room where Hojo was watching from, then did as she was told. If there was any test she was going to enjoy, this one was it. She had no reason to fight against it. She had to take every bit of good she could get in this place. She looked at the blades and saw a single, green materia in it. A Restore materia, barely used. She could heal her wounds with this, so it did not look like he was out to kill her yet.

She tested the weight and balance of the blades. They were not bad, but clearly mass produced. They lacked any character and were not as nice as her own weapons. She hoped she would be able to get those back eventually. As she swung the blades experimentally she watched Hojo talking, but she could not hear him. He was probably just recording the purpose and method of the experiment.

A short while later a computer generated voice came over the speakers in the room and the lights dimmed. "_S-2 testing program. Defeat all enemies or survive five minutes._" The ground around her lit up in a circle roughly ten feet in diameter. "_The participant is within the starting zone. Test will begin in ten, nine, eight…_"

As the countdown continued she eyed the ground around her, a slight glow could be seen where the magically infused holograms were forming. Good thing there was a tell for incoming foes. The moment the voice said, "begin" she rushed out of the starting circle, slashing at one of the holograms almost as soon as it was done forming. She danced around them, easily dodging attacks from the simple programming of humanoid foes. It was best to keep them from bunching up around her, so she had to keep moving and eliminating them as others were added at regular intervals, with an announcement of "_Additional hostiles detected_". She cleaned up all of the virtual enemies with over two minutes to spare. She grinned, she could feel the surprise from the watching SOLDIERS, probably because she was not winded from that effort.

"Impressive," Hojo said over the speakers. "I believe the SOLDIERs watching would be interested to know who trained you."

She just shook her head, she would not risk Flynn's freedom to even dare speak his name here. "Are we done here?" she asked, before casually healing the few scratches and bruises she earned in the test.

"You did so well," Hojo said, a cruel sort of pride in his voice, "I think we can skip straight to the First Class test."

"Fine," she said, voice drenched in determination, "You wanna see what I can do, Hojo? Come and try." The bastard was going to do whatever he wanted anyway, so what did it matter? She had to admit though, a part of her was excited. She wanted to know if she had what it took. If she could do it, that would mean that at least half of Avalanche was on par with the current generation of First Class SOLDIERs.

"_S-1 testing program_," The voice began, "_Defeat all enemies. Time and methods will be scored. Defeating all enemies within 3 minutes is an automatic pass. The system will not announce incoming enemies._"

Ralena strode over to the glowing circle in the middle of the room, indicating her starting position.

As the computer counted down, she reached out into the past, searching for the distinctive image of her silver haired savior. Here, she found a side of him she had never known in person, the unstoppable warrior, the general, the master swordsman. She felt cool confidence seep into her and embraced it as the constructs began to form around her. It was like he was standing behind her, watching as a proud teacher might. Her stance shifted from normal. She relaxed and went straight backed and standing tall, blades held casually down by her sides.

Glowing green eyes opened as she exhaled. She was more than capable of handling this.

"_Begin_."

The targets were stronger this time, she had to hit them harder or more times. They were a little faster, too, and she had to block or parry rather than just dodge before the first non-human target came in from the barely visible walls. There was still a slight shimmer on the ground when new targets came in and she managed to get an existing one to attack and strike a new foe as it formed at least twice. Her opponents were a mix, human troopers and swordsmen, then those in power armor and Sweeper mini-tanks. There was also the occasional guard hound thrown in.

She was surprised at how calm she felt, she ended up using her Payback limit in the first minute, rather than the dance. Things were different this time, she told herself. She was still afraid of what Hojo could do, but she had plenty of hope that her friends would come for her. Friends who were already planning on getting her out. It was just a matter of time.

"_Three minutes have elapsed._"

She curled her lip at the fact that she hadn't automatically passed. But she had prioritized defense, so it wasn't surprising. She winced as she was struck by a man in a heavy, armored suit. She rolled with the force and came up into a crouch and immediately moved again to avoid gunfire from another enemy. As the feeling of her limit came upon her, she was expecting the feeling of bloodlust, of the Dance of Kali, but this was different. Some other feeling was more prevalent. This was something new.

Seeing no reason not to use it, she rushed to clear one more enemy for the breathing room she might need. Reaching out with her will, through the pain she found the power of a new ability lurking at the edge.

The room went dark. She could sense the observers' confusion. "I'm not a frightened child anymore," she said passionately, "I am more than you would have ever let me be."

Pin points of light dotted the darkness above her.

"And I have friends."

The lights moved closer.

"Resourceful and violent friends who I am sure will be coming to see us."

Dozens of bright white lights, the size of basketballs slammed down on her simulated foes. Most were already damaged and it only took a single falling star to finish those. The rest she aimed down at the last remaining mini-tank that crumbled under the onslaught. She continued to pour out her hope and determination on that one spot. She focused whatever was left on the floor. If she could just get through…

Alarms blared and lights flickered, the simulation was breaking down.

It wasn't enough, the reinforced floors and walls were too thick. This place was built to withstand the likes of Sephiroth, and as good as she was, she wasn't there. Through the flashing lights and alarms she looked at the professor behind the window. 

When she met his eye, a silver shadow in reached out from the past.

****

The Masamune sung as it passed through the air and sliced unerringly through a model II Sweeper.

Sephiroth had used his ghost access card to get into the records room at the science department. Knowing Ralena's designation was Red III made it easy for him to find the right files. There was brief mention of her receiving the designation once she was the last subject of the project, which originally had twenty subjects. When he saw her in the pod and read the procedures on her schedule the day before, it looked familiar. Finding her records proved his theory out.

Without conscious thought he sidestepped an attack from a Wutaian katana, then reposted, withdrawing his long blade and cutting down another swordsman. He turned away to face the next threat before the first hit the ground.

Stupid, stupid, stupid!

He had found her annual records, all her milestone checkups were on a print out that listed a control plus 3 other coded subjects' results on them, with dates for when the similar test had been done at the same age for the others. G001, G002 and S001. The difference between the comparative data and hers was years, but he knew those dates. He had put it together then. Morbidly he had checked more of the files, hoping he was wrong.

An attack came in behind him, but he raised a hand and blocked it with barrier magic without looking. Turning with a sneer, he faced the massive tank.

It was him. Him and Angeal and Genesis. They were the original experiment. Ralena was being compared to them.

A short growl of anger left his lips as he charged the tank, zig zagging when it was about to fire and dodging its strikes.

It wasn't the best methodology either, that almost made it worse. A proper comparison study would be the same gender at least. But no, Hojo was a thrice damned genius, wasn't he? He could "work around" short comings like that.

On top of that, in a few years Hojo had plans for _breeding_ her, assuming the experiment hadn't rendered her sterile. The SOLDIER had no illusions that it would be a willing process.

Success or failure, Hojo had no intentions of ever letting her go.

Sephiroth had seen red at the realization, overcome with an anger he didn't know he had possessed. He couldn't go see her while in this state. She would think his anger was her fault. So he came here instead. To slaughter constructs of magic and technology.

It was not as satisfying as he hoped it would be.

With multiple, rapid swings of his blade he cut chunks off of the tank, first parts that would affect its ability to attack, then several more well placed strikes to truly break it. Sparks traveled along its surface, trailing squares of light as the simulation ended. Not nearly done, he went to the control panel and upped the settings, going well beyond the pitiable safety recommendations.

Right now, he was drowning in his anger, when it wore off later there would be the horror. The acknowledgement that _he_ was part of the same study as his friends that had degenerated.

****

Ralena was suddenly overwhelmed by a burst of self-disgust, coupled strongly with rage and anger directed squarely on the professor watching her. She had no idea where the feeling came from, she didn't care. Her fear of the man behind the glass condensed into a little ball, easily ignored by the pressure of the combined forces of her own red hot rage and hatred that combined with that outside feeling.

Turning fully to the viewing window, she rushed it, jumping and standing on the narrow frame of the door beneath the window. She scratched her blades against the window, scoring it, but not coming anywhere near breaking it. At the impact the madman twitched and his assistants jumped back in surprise. Glaring at her with narrowed eyes, Hojo pushed a button and a pulse went through the sensors in her skin. Her muscles started to seize up, becoming harder to move. She pushed through and continued to attack the window directly in front of the professor with blazing green eyes. The blade of the side sword snapped off and without hesitation she flipped it around in her hand and hammered the glass with the pommel.

"I'm not putting up with your shit anymore Hojo!" she yelled over the blaring alarms.

She continued to strike, she got no satisfaction in striking the glass in front of him. She wanted him, she wanted Hojo's blood. This was not bloodlust, pure unadulterated _hate_ flowed through her with an intensity she could not comprehend.

Cracks began to form in the safety glass.

"If Vincent doesn't get you first, I'm gonna take off your _FUCKING HEAD OFF_!" She continued to attack through the pulses going down her muscles. But Hojo turned up the dial and her limbs tightly curled up against her will. The implants on her temples also started to pulse. She felt herself tipping back and hitting the floor.

Green eyes still blazed daggers and red flashing lights illuminated her face as her vision began to blur from the voltage coursing through her. She did not know if the motes of white light were from the broken room or her own eyes. She managed one last hateful declaration before blackness claimed her.

"And you… _suck_ at science…"

*******

Cloud stood on the bridge of the Highwind, looking down at the drifting white puffs of water vapor that were his namesake. He was at a bit of a loss of what to do. It was obvious what they all wanted to do. But you could not go and rescue someone when you did not know where they were. His eyes trailed over to a corner of the bridge where a usually unoccupied terminal was. Vincent sat there, scrolling through information. Cloud imagined that every time he typed in something or clicked there was an air of menace to the action. It was no wonder that the bridge operators were all sitting as far away from him as possible.

Getting Ralena back was only one of their problems…

If only Vincent had been brooding. Brooding, they could have easily handled. That wasn't what was happening though. Anyone among them with a lick of instincts could sense that the man was quickly becoming a pressure vessel. After talking with Barret for advice, Cloud had tasked Vincent with studying the layout and methods of getting into and out of Midgar for a rescue. It was the only thing that he could think to give him to do that was remotely related to what was going on until they knew any better.

Since Cait Sith came to see them yesterday, none of the crewmen even dared to try and speak to the man. One had tried to wordlessly offer him a cup of coffee and the glare Vincent had given the poor guy had him quickly retreating while whispering an apology.

A few of the other Avalanche members were still trying to work out what was Sephiroth was doing with equipment from the reactors, but now it seemed a lot less immediately important. It was just something to keep them busy for now.

Cloud looked back towards the entrance as he heard several sets of footsteps approaching the bridge. Cait Sith entered, trailed by Yuffie and Barret, who must have seen him on the way and followed to hear what the spy had to say.

"Hey Cait, got any news?" The blonde asked, he was unsurprised that Vincent was already up and approaching the group as they gathered near the doorway.

"She's definitely in the Tower," Cait Sith said, "I saw her in the hall today by chance."

"How is she?" Yuffie asked immediately.

"I didn't get a chance to ask, she was escorted by several troops. She looks healthy, if tired." Of course, she had barely been missing 24 hours.

Cloud asked, "Do you know where they were taking her?"

"The SOLDIER Training Room," Cait answered, "for threat assessment."

"And?" Cloud prompted.

Cait Sith averted his eyes for a moment and looked like he was not sure how he was supposed to feel. "I don't think anyone was disappointed with her combat performance. I heard they put her into the simulation for testing First Class SOLDIERs… She… uhh… broke the room."

Cloud blinked, that wasn't what he was asking about, but now he wished he could have taken the time to be proud of his friend. "Are you sure?"

"Oh yeah," the toy nodded vigorously, "several of the S-1s were pissed."

"Do you know whose prisoner she is?" Vincent asked pointedly.

Cloud noticed Barret wince. They wished that Vincent would not have asked that. They all knew what the most likely answer would be, and there was no way that the former Turk would take it well. The cat opened his mouth, closed it, then sighed. "Hojo was there to observe the test. They're keeping her in the 65th floor cell block, but I heard that she is officially being held by the Science Department."

There was the slight sound of metal rubbing against itself and Cloud did not have to look to see Vincent's hands tighten into fists. His only concern was that the brass gauntlet might cut into his palms.

"Why is she in the detention block?" Cloud said. It was important that they keep moving forward on this task. As long as they were working on the problem then Vincent would stay manageable. They did not know for sure, but Cloud was under the assumption that the more agitated he was the more likely one of his "alter egos" would come out. Cait Sith shrugged at this, "I'm not sure yet. Rumor has it that the Science Department has been busy. Maybe they don't have any open cells?"

"That's a scary thought," Barret grunted quietly.

"At least we know where she is," Cloud commented. Keep moving the conversation forward, don't dwell on anything that is not relevant. "Now we can really start planning."

Without looking at anyone Vincent gave a short, subtle nod. "Do you know anything else about the situation, Cait Sith?"

*******

Hojo fumed as he walked into his personal lab. At first he had been happy with Red III's performance. But she clearly had developed a disobedient streak in her time away. Threats did not bother him, that was par for the course and he had never been concerned. No one who ever threatened him had managed to get close enough to lay a hand on him yet. He was far too valuable to the ShinRa.

But she had _dared_ to insult his methods.

What did the little bitch know? She was an experimental subject, not a scientist. Ungrateful brat. He made her what she was, and that was clearly something more than a normal human.

He would show them, that bothersome Turk Valentine and that ungrateful little redhead.

He sat at his computer and rapidly searched through older projects. Where were those notes? He had put something aside years ago. He just had to check for compatibility… yesss. Genius! That would put them in their place wouldn't it?

It wouldn't take much. A little injection, an implant, a special Mako mixture to let it all set in. His lip curled up, he needed to finish getting new baseline readings for her first. Some of those would be difficult now that she was clearly not so cooperative. He could probably get them all done in a day or so, it would take that long to get the special materials out of storage.

It's not like Deepground was using it.

He was unsure how long it would be until they saw the effects, but the seed would be planted. He'd put her under for this, normally he hated to bother with such things, but she was feisty and defiant these days and too much squirming was not good for such delicate work.

He grinned madly, besides, if she didn't know either than they would _both_ be in for a nasty surprise, assuming she were ever rescued.

In the meantime he had other things to do. Hojo's eyes landed on a tray of vials, already measured out into proper doses, these were more potent than the previous batches, time was running short, he could feel it.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts of such nonsense. Science did not operate on _feelings_. Facts, timetables, data. These were what mattered.

If he was thinking in such a way it was a sign that he should get some sleep, looking at the clock Hojo realized that he had been up for thirty three hours straight. When he heard that Red III was coming in he had put off several tasks to prepare for her arrival. Then had stayed up to continue his other work. He had so many extraordinary samples to work with. Samples from the crater, Junon and new blood draws from Red III.

He just needed to check one last thing before he turned in.

It was wonderful to know that his favorite experiments were doing so well.

*******

Vincent walked into the lab in the ShinRa tower and found it to be strikingly similar to the ones in Nibelheim. A large terminal was on one side of the room with its dark stone-like flooring and the equipment looked similar, if sleeker. The details of the space became background noise as he saw the tank on the other side of the room. He rushed over to the container that held green liquid and a red headed empath.

Ralena seemed to be half floating, unconscious in the liquid, no mask or lines were connected to her. Vincent's breath caught as slammed his fist against the side of the container.

To his eternal relief her eyes shot open at the noise, bright green and lovely despite their surroundings. Hope burst forth between them. Ralena tucked her legs under her, so that she lowered in the tank and was closer to eye level with him. She put a hand against the glass and he lifted his gauntlet to mirror it.

"Don't worry," he said, "I'll get you out."

"I knew you'd come," she smiled. He was surprised at how clearly he heard her, there was a slight distortion, like she was talking into a tube rather than through glass.

"Do you like her, boy?"

Vincent turned sharply at Hojo's voice, but no one else was visible in the room. It sounded as though he was speaking through an intercom. Vincent moved to the terminals, trying to find where the release controls would be. If Hojo knew they were here, they did not have much time.

"She is wonderful isn't she?" Hojo taunted, "But…" A short cry of pain reached his ears and he turned back to Ralena. Her back arched violently and she twisted in pain in the tank. "There was still room for improvement."

Hojo's cackling mad laughter echoed in the room and panic filled Vincent. She thrashed so violently that her red hair whipped around like a flag in a hurricane. He had to get her out, but he couldn't tear his eyes away from her torment to look for how to open the container. Eventually she curled back forward in on herself, gasping in pain as whatever fit had taken her eased away. Her eyes were closed tight as she struggled to catch her breath. Tears were falling from her eyes despite the fact that she was in liquid. Her hands were against the glass, as though she needed it for support. She barely got any words out. "I'm scared, Vincent, get me out."

He watched in dawning horror as the fingers of her left hand began to lose their detail and stretch. No, her fingers were not stretching, her hand was splitting down the space between her fingers. The division traveled down passed her wrist and continued until her entire left arm was replaced with five long tentacles.

He swallowed hard, a hoarse whisper escaped his lips, "no…"

Finally opening her eyes again at the sound of his voice she stared at what was once her hand. Her pupils dilated, but only vertically, forming into cat-like slits.

"Vincent, please." Desperation was plain in her voice and on her face. She looked too terrified to continue crying.

He turned away from her. Fists clenched tightly at his sides, unable to look at what had happened to her. Too afraid to see how else she might change.

He was too late.

He had failed… again.

He would have to pay the price.

His throat was dry, and his breath shallow. Words forced themselves out of his throat, "I'm sorry…"

He turned back to her, confusion colored her features, her hair still floated around her head, but had started to clump together like snakes. He could not stop his body. He did not know if he should. He drew out Cerberus and raised the gun, the three barrels were an inch away from the glass in front of her face.

"Vincent?"

He squeezed the trigger.

Vincent's eyes snapped open and he sat up gasping for breath. A trembling hand moved to his chest as the horror of what he had done consumed him. He could still hear the cracking glass, see her blood mixing with the green liquid as it spilled out of the tank and over his shoes. That last, questioning look in her green eyes. Several deep, ragged breaths later he realized that he had been dreaming. Throwing his legs over the side of the bed, he put his head in his hands, struggling to come to grips with the actions his subconscious had put him through and forced his mind to find its way back to reality.

It wasn't real. He had not killed her.

Ralena was still alive… and still held prisoner by Hojo.

Several more strained breaths ripped between his teeth. Today would mark the fourth day since Ralena had been taken, and this was the worst nightmare yet. They were still planning and setting up the rescue. She was still in the ShinRa tower, still in Hojo's hands. It might be too late, it might not be. His insides twisted at the thought of finding the empath like that. In the midst of some experiment. The things that could be happening to her right now. The same kinds of treatment that he had undergone, his dream had already beem showing him that.

He stared at his hands, for a moment he saw his fingertips darken to black.

He blinked and it all seemed normal again, but he could not be sure that it was a trick of the light. He balled his hands into fists and tried to banish the vision of her at the end of his gun.

Her fear had become his, but for different reasons. If Ralena were infected with Jenova cells. Whether it was him or Chaos using his body, he would destroy her.

Vincent took a deep breath and reminded himself that there was a degree of forgiveness. Chaos had not tried to kill Cloud, who had the same amount of Jenova in him as a SOLDIER. The creature did not _like_ their blonde leader, but it was willing to allow him to exist.

He suddenly wished they were not in the air, he felt the desire to run. Run until his lungs screamed and his muscles burned. To push his body until he could think no more. Some primitive creature within him wanted to be free of this feeling of fear and the stress it brought. Perhaps it was literally the Galian Beast within him.

Vincent thought back to his time under Hojo's knife. It had taken time for changes that extreme. Even SOLDIERs were changed over the course of months. If they were able to get her back fast enough the damage he could do to her was, hopefully, limited.

He got up and grabbed his shirt, there was no longer a point in even thinking about sleep tonight. He would go to the Operations Room again and study the layouts of the ShinRa tower. Right now, the only thing he could do for her was try to make a plan with a high chance of success as quickly as possible.

*******

It was now two days since she had been knocked out in the Training Room. Well, it would be more accurate to say that she had slept twice since then. Hojo was definitely rushing things, he had faithful lab assistants take care of her mundane tests, and she had not fought them on those. Today was something new, and she wasn't sure what disturbed her more, the uncertainty or the manic gleam in Hojo's eyes.

"I imagine your ability to use materia and manipulate mana has increased." Hojo said conversationally as Ralena glared at him from the contraption she had been strapped into.

It was a simple enough thing at first glance. A chair with a screen in front of her and her hands stuck inside of chambers that surrounded the armrest. She wondered if everyone who used it had to be strapped down. "This device helps to measure both control and capacity of mana. Compared to the rudimentary methods we used to use with you, this gives proper numbers." He said proudly. "As you channel and manipulate your mana field to keep the dot within the circle we will measure your output. If the indicator leaves the circle, the machine will forcibly draw out more of your mana, the further out of the circle, the faster it draws."

She swallowed hard, trying not to show her dread. She had been the target of mana draining attacks before, they were not as painful as physical attacks, but put into a machine that could draw constantly... Her long term control wasn't great either, that was why she typically avoided using summons, maintaining and directing them was harder than just quick spellcasting.

"I imagine I will also see if you still respond well to positive punishment." He grinned, before his veil of professionalism came back, "You will have ten seconds to get the indicator within the target area before the draw begins. Starting now."

Ralena did well enough at it, for about thirty seconds. The first forced draw on her body was surprising and caused the dot on the screen to violently fly over the circle and exit out the other side. Her whole body stiffened again as she tried to concentrate. It felt like the machine was trying to empty her with the pressure of a hose through a straw. It was painful, but in a way she had never experienced before. Trained by the bastard in the room to put off showing discomfort as long as possible, she gritted her teeth and managed to get the ever-wavering dot back into the target area. The next time it left, the shock had her throwing the it to the edge of the screen.

Her scream filled the soundproofed room as all of her energy was torn through her arms. Ripping through her spirit like ice-cold razor wire. The bizarre, draining pain didn't allow her concentration to return. It only took a few seconds for the device to pull the last of the mana out of her body. Its victim drained, the device ceased functioning and she slumped over.

Unconcerned, Hojo looked at the read out on the screen. "Hmm… capacity is definitely increased, average control…" he muttered a few more observations to himself and made notes on his tablet. Looking over at the unconscious subject, a slight look of disappointment on his face. "I thought you would have lasted longer, given your pain tolerance. I suppose next time I will use a less intense setting." He adjusted the controls and the lighting on the machine changed. A light hum filled the air and the woman twitched as Hojo continued adjusting the settings. After a few minutes she opened her eyes, and they pulsed green for a second. "Refreshed, I see."

She blinked and looked around the room, unsure of how much time had passed. "What… what did you…?"

"This lovely machine can also put mana back into you." he said placing a hand on the top of the monitor. "Isn't it wonderful? Now we don't have to wait for your mana to recover naturally to do another test." His smile stretched across his face and her eyes went wide in horror. She knew that expression, that tone, that spark in his eyes. Hojo was all in. She had his full focus right now. When he was like this she knew she could expect hours of his direct attention and that was never a good thing.

"I've turned down the intensity," he continued, almost paternally, "Just do your best and you should be able to last _much_ longer this time."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One time I put a TENS unit on my arm and wrist and my hand just seized up… it's a weird feeling


	33. Snow and Chaos

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Fog & Thunder; Silence; Haunted; Did it to yourself; Prep; Snow and Chaos

She was standing on her toes and reaching out as far as she could. She tried to reach her, but she was just too far away. She was not even remotely close to reaching her. Aerith lunged forward, but Zack grabbed her ankle and pulled her back out as she dipped into the fog that they stood on the edge of.

"_You've gotta stop_," he said with a memory of Angeal, "There's no way you can reach her through all of that."

"But she's hurting and alone!" Aerith protested.

"Is it because she's in that?" Zack asked, gesturing to the mass of swirling, dimly lit, slowly turning fog in the middle of the Lifestream. There was a slight pull to it, as though they were at the outside edge of a whirlpool.

Aerith shook her head, "No… that's just Midgar."

"_What!?_" A brief tumble of surprised Zack memories came out all at once.

She showed him the wastes around the city, and how the flow of Lifestream was sucked up into the reactors. The pull they felt here was the reactor pumps, it was weak out here at the edges, but stronger closer to the center.

"So… if we get sucked up in that…"

"I think we'll disappear and be used as power."

"Wait… so Mako is dead people!?"

Unsure, she shrugged, and set to thinking. She didn't have the time to explain it all to Zack now. After a little while, she gathered a tiny string of energy and sent it up, where it coiled around itself around a little ball that floated high above them.

"_What are you doing?_" Zack asked again, this time with an image of Kunsel. Aerith had learned that Zack had plenty of different memories of people asking him that.

"I'm going to try the same thing I did with Sephiroth."

"The relays?"

"mm-hmmm…."

"But she's not _in_ Lifestream like he is, will it work?"

"I don't know, but _I have to do keep trying_."

"Why not help the other guy?"

She looked back to him, confused.

"The red one," Zack pointed off in the direction of the storm clouds that he had learned represented Chaos. While Chaos was more violent, it was not as inherently deadly to them as being too close to a Mako reactor. "I'm pretty sure there didn't used to be as much lightning over there."

"He has the other's with him… she's all alone," Aerith pouted. There was an image of Elmyra, sitting at the kitchen table crying, a letter clutched in her hands. Just like back then, Aerith desperately did not want to leave her friend.

Zack grabbed her by the shoulders, they were a little more solid every day. "I know, and I hate to say it but, _There's nothing we can do_ for her. All we can do, is support the people who can."

"When did you become such a quitter?"

He sighed, "Fine, give the relay thing a go, but after that you need to take a break."

*******

He remained still and listened.

Silence.

What a lovely thing it was. For days now he had been unbothered by both the Cetra and red head. He felt that his desire to remove her reached some distant puppet of his. This allowed him to fully focus on his preparations uninterrupted.

Occasionally, he would still think of the things brought about by the Cetra's efforts. Like aftershocks, he would get flashes of the few friends he once had. Random things said to him, or an image of their face.

The only shame was that he was beginning to miss the music.

While he had lost a strike force at the Corel Reactor, he had gotten a good view on his enemies. Now that he had crossed swords with him again, he could see that Cloud actually had skill now. He was not just swinging the sword around like a petulant child in a rage. The troops he had controlled in the reactor were not as fast, but the fact that Cloud had fought two of them while he swapped control was worthy of recognition.

He hadn't spent much time fighting the swordswoman. Cloud was too fast to risk splitting his attention like that. He had gotten in that first good flurry of strikes on her in which she was knocked down and lost her grip on her primary weapon. The green-eyed woman seemed to be eternally off her game so he had left her to the troops.

The flier's he had sent after them was more of a test in addition to retaliation for the frequent interruptions. Most of them had only had a low level connection to him. But when the order was as simple as "go there and attack that" it seemed to be enough. That was good, he needed an army, but the amount of it that needed to be intelligent was small.

Finally, everything was in place.

Red puppet strings led out from him, invisible to the physical world. The puppets he now possessed were far from perfect, nevertheless they were many and varied. That gave him the flexibility to use them all for the tasks best suited.

Now it was time to begin phase one, the results of which would determine his next course of action.

It was time to make Cloud and ShinRa dance.

*******

Tifa was worried.

It was bad enough to worry about their captured friend. As it was they were closing on the seventh day since she went missing and very few people on the Highwind were not affected in some way. Subtle stress signs were apparent nearly everywhere. It wasn't just the core members of Avalanche either. Since the mutiny at Junon, the crew of the Highwind was also considered part of the group. While everyone did not always get along, they all had a bond that living together in the same vessel brought about. Some people had dark circles under their eyes, some barely ate, while others were stress eating.

Yuffie was trying desperately to turn up the cheer, though it was so blatantly forced that it had hardly any effect at all.

There was only one person on the ship that the shinobi had not dared to try and cheer up. Vincent's very presence shut the Wutaian girl's attempts to bring up the mood to a screeching halt. As if she felt seeing her smile, no matter how fake, would be an insult worth killing for.

Vincent had become the living ghost of the ship. Haunting it while seeing to the one purpose of his world right now, to the point that he needed to be reminded to eat. Tifa knew that he did not need as much as a normal person when he was not being transformed by his Limit Break, but three days was excessive. One morning, when she brought food into the Operations Room, she noticed that Vincent avoided the blueberry muffin she had intentionally put on the platter. She had made a point of asking the others ahead of time to leave it for him, too. She got the feeling he was abstaining from his preferred breakfast as a form of self-punishment, but at least he ate a bagel.

Tifa realized that she always saw the gunman either in the Ops Room or at the bridge terminal, even early in the morning and late at night. This led to some discreet questions to the crew members on the night shift, after which the bartender was convinced that Vincent had stopped sleeping. She shared her observations with Cloud who only shook his head and shrugged. "I don't think there is anything else we can do," he said. "He's going to be this way until we get Ralena back…"

This state made Tifa less than happy. Not for the first time she wished that Aerith was still with them. She was sure that between her and the Cetra they would have been able to help their red-clad comrade in another way. She glanced across the table at Vincent, his every move had intent and there was a stiffness to it that showed some kind of effort.

Right now they were looking over the schematics for ShinRa Tower that were spread out on the table and shown on the screen. Maps of Midgar with highlighted maintenance tunnels and checkpoints were also being reviewed.

"Ok, so we figured out our best options for getting into Midgar, and a few options for moving through the city to the tower." Cloud said, "The next step is getting to the floor she's held on…"

"The 65th floor," Cait Sith provided.

"The same one as before?" Vincent asked, "That makes it easier."

"Not really," The toy said, "Access to the executive levels is more scrutinized lately. You can _leave_ through any stairwell stairs with an authorized key card, but now anyone coming _in_ has to enter any level above 60 through a lobby and be checked in."

Cloud winced, "That's probably our fault."

"That's what happens when there are two escapes in one quarter," Cait Sith shrugged, "Even if one was during Sephiroth's coming out massacre." The cat tapped on the table nervously. "I'm trying to see if I can get you a keycard that will let you in through a back way, but the systems have been updated lately, so I'm not sure I can get it done by the time we need without raising suspicion." Cait Sith had been hoping to do this while breaking as few rules as possible, but it was no longer a luxury that Ralena could afford.

"Can we get access as a maintenance crew?" Vincent asked.

Cait Sith shook his head, "They have to check-in during office hours..."

They brainstormed other options for a few minutes when Cait Sith suddenly stated, "I'm getting an alert, please hold." The robot immediately stilled mid-motion and Cloud shared a look with Barret.

After several seconds the toy cat animated again, "Guys we have a situation."

"What is it?" Tifa sighed.

"A 'huge wave of monsters' is traveling over the glacier towards Icicle Inn."

"It must be Sephiroth," Cloud sneered.

"Probably, ShinRa is deploying," there was a pause like he was looking at something, "…three choppers with troops and a handful of SOLDIERs to get an eye on the situation, but there's no way they'll be able to get all of those people out of there. And I don't think troops will be able to handle that, either."

"What's the ETA?"

"For us," Cid cut in, "I would guess just under two hours."

"Probably close to the same for the ShinRa," Cait provided, "The horde is estimated to be there in about four."

"That is not enough time to evacuate," Vincent said tersely. His hands were tight fists on the table. Since Cait Sith had started talking he thought about what this meant, this would likely put off the rescue. He was not happy about that at all, but they had agreed a long time ago they would help people when they could. Leaving an entire village to be overrun by monsters would not sit well with any of them, even Ralena. She was a monster hunter, if he knew her at all, she would rather stay in the lab another day than let over a hundred civilians get slaughtered by rampaging creatures.

At the realization that they had Vincent's buy-in, the order was given for the Highwind to turn towards Icicle Inn and they began discussing tactics.

*******

When Ralena had woken up, she was in the otherwise empty Mako pod, naked, with the usual leads, lines and breathing mask attached to her. It was unusual for her to be conscious for this, no doubt he would pipe some gas into her mask once things got started. As Ralena watched the professor through the porthole she guessed that he had gotten distracted with another project and the sedative they gave her had worn off. While she observed Hojo, who was looking over some vials, she could not help but notice that something was off about the man. He was more manic, more agitated then she had ever remembered. There were other, subtle things too, but she could not quite place them. If she didn't know better she would think he was sick. She didn't care for Hojo's health exactly, but it would affect how he treated her.

When his back was turned she risked using her senses on him, there was a familiar undertone that her brain had trouble placing. Then she saw it, that little detail that tied it all together. He turned to hold something up to the light and she saw his pupils retract like a cat's. "You finally did it." She muttered in disbelief, her voice muffled by the breathing mask.

The professor's eyes looked her way, "What was that?"

"You finally made yourself an experiment," she said hoarsely, louder so that he could hear, her voice echoed in the confined space. A slow, frightening grin spread across his face. The spark of insanity in his eyes suddenly looked like a full blown bonfire. "Your eyes… Is it Jenova?"

"You always were observant, Red III," he said approvingly. A lab tech came in and Ralena watched the brief exchange in silence. Her senses still on she noticed something, a now recognizable feeling grew when the person came in, and faded a bit as they left.

"You didn't..."

"Hmmm?"

She swallowed the lump forming in her throat, "Did you infect your staff too?" she knew the answer, but she did not want to believe it. Say what you will about Hojo, she never knew him to lie. As far as he was concerned Jenova may as well have been Sephiroth's mother and Lucrecia was just an incubator.

His grin widened unnaturally. "'_Infected_' is such a negative term. They are able to self-document… Much like how you used to do."

Shit. Shit. SHIT! She had been trying so hard, being so stubborn about him not knowing what she could do that she missed something this monumental. She had to get out of here, she had to warn somebody. She didn't know what this would lead too, but waiting to be rescued was no longer an option. Ralena pushed herself against the inside wall of the pod, not even noticing the pull of the needles her skin. "You can't do this, Hojo! You can't put the cells of that thing randomly into people!"

"Of course not," he said seriously, "Like with you and the Cetra DNA, there are certain genetic markers that are required for compatibility." While many people considered Hojo insane, Ralena knew that he had been the _same kind_ of crazy for years. Meticulous and obsessive. Careful with his experiments, to a point. He rarely saw his own bias, but to the best of his perception kept himself as an outside observer. She may had considered him unhinged before, but compared to what she saw now…

She tried to cast doubt into his mind, reaching out with her powers, but either the alien cells in his brain made him resistant or he was far too committed to the act for anything she could do to affect him. "You can't do this Hojo, it's madness!"

"It's not madness, it's _science_!" he said sternly, "The same science that gave Sephiroth his power and grace, the same science that helped resurrect him."

She stared at him in wide-eyed disbelief. Really? _Now_ was when this psycho decided he wanted to be a supportive father!? "So, you're going to spread Jenova cells and... And then what?"

He walked over, peering into the port hole and putting a finger over his mouth. "Shh... you'll ruin the surprise." She heard the click of a button and it was all she could do to not panic as the diluted Mako mixture began to fill the pod.

*******

Upon landing in Icicle Inn, Avalanche already had their roles allocated.

Several of the crewmen, along with Cid, Cait Sith and Yuffie were to get as many locals on to the airship as they could. While the others saw to getting the lay of the land and see what they could do to delay the inevitable.

The ShinRa choppers had come in fully loaded with little room for extra passengers. While Cait Sith knew another slower ShinRa vehicle was on the way, he saw no reason to put off the evacuation. Especially when the Highwind could easily carry the entire population of the town.

Vincent and Crewman Blake made their way up to a rocky outcropping not far from the abandoned Faremis house, and set up their sniper rifles. In the time it took them to get here, Vincent had worked to put himself in a mission ready state of mind. There was no way he could put Ralena completely out of his thoughts, but he made her a point of motivation. Focus on this job, get it done quick and right, then they could go back to the rescue effort. They were so close… maybe two days from moving at most.

He looked down the snowy valley that led to the glacier. The enemy had marched across the icy glacier in a dark mass that now clustered at the mouth of the valley. He quickly estimated the speed of the horde and began designating mental range markers. "We've got a wide variety of monsters incoming," he said into the comms. "Looks like a mix of almost everything we fought last time we were here and a few larger hostiles. Not a lot of fliers though…"

"Any humans?" Cloud asked.

"Hard to tell from here," Vincent replied, "I'll keep a look out. Right now I would estimate ninety minutes for first contact." That was sooner than his real guess, but he would rather correct to give them more time, rather than less.

As he finished speaking Vincent looked up at a sound nearby. It was a ShinRa sniper team by the looks of their gear. There were several seconds where both pairs looked at each other. One of the troopers looked at Vincent and Blake, then at their rifles, clearly set up to fire at the incoming horde. After the assessment the troop nodded at them. Vincent returned the gesture and the ShinRa team set up their own sniper nest not far away.

While the others were helping to organize the evac, Cloud, Tifa, Barret and Red XIII trotted up to the north end of town, where an S1 SOLDIER was directing a number of troops alongside Reno and Rude. "Is this going to be the defensive line?" Cloud asked.

There was a moment of surprise from the three standout members of the ShinRa group. "Da fuck?" Reno asked.

Cloud gestured to in the general direction of the on-coming monsters. "This is more important than us, right?"

After another second, Rude gave a curt nod, "Right."

"Good," Barret grunted, "then we're all helpin'."

The SOLDIER gave the Turks a questioning look, then shrugged. Reno gestured to him, "Ziskey here is in charge of the defenses."

The S1 explained how they were setting up some barricades, just beyond the town's fence. He wished they had time to dig a trench, but the ground was too frozen and this wasn't exactly the kind of thing one could plan for.

Cloud turned back to his friends, "Shiva and Titan?"

Tifa and Barret grinned as he man swapped around two of his materia. They called forth their humanoid summons and soon a trench started to form in the frozen earth in front of the barricades and was being filled with ice spikes. Red XIII stayed beside them.

Reno stared as Kunsel came up to see what was going on. The Turk leaned over to the new arrival, muttering, "Did you know you could use summons like that?"

Kunsel shook his head, "No… but it's not exactly part of standard training. Summons are _supposed_ to be rare."

Reno scoffed, "Yeah, ask them how many remote corners of the world they have been to and tell me the last time ShinRa went there." The Turks still got reports on Avalanche's movements, even if they all came in after the fact. After all, Reeve had to justify his maintained control of Cait Sith to Rufus. They moved around the world like a goddamn pin ball.

Cloud walked over to them and thumbed back towards the two controlling the summons. "Let them know what other terrain work we need."

Ziskey nodded dumbly, then went to give better direction to Tifa and Barret. Red XIII watched the SOLDIER approach cautiously, clearly acting as guard to the other two. Cloud watched them, and without looking at Reno asked, "How are the flowers?"

"Taken care of," Reno answered.

Cloud nodded, then re-joined his comrades. As he walked away two other blondes approached from the village.

"Are we really just going to not do _anything_ about them?" Elena asked.

Rude just nodded, "Right now, they're helping, and it's not the mission."

"Just keep an eye out for the Black Materia will you?" Scarlet purred. "That trumps everything else we are here for."

_Ugh_, Reno almost forgot she was here. "Where are you setting up your toy, Scarlet?"

The woman licked her red lips in anticipation of the massacre to come. "I've got some boys setting it up on the balcony over there," she purred. Reno was glad she was wearing sunglasses, the look she got in her eyes at times like this always bothered him. "I'm thinking of getting a little side table for some cocktails."

_I bet you'll have a bed back there too_. "Yeah, well. I hope you have the time to do a quick check. You wouldn't want it to blow up in your face," Reno said. _I, on the other hand, wouldn't mind that._

"I appreciate, your concern," she smiled, before sauntering away. Even her red winter clothes were not bulky enough to hide her attempt at seductive body language.

Once the woman walked into the building Elena just shook her head. "Seriously, is it me, or is she weirder than normal?"

"What?" Reno said, looking at the rookie, "Ginned up and horny at the idea of mass destruction? Nah, this is pretty on brand for her." He sighed and brought up his binoculars to see what he could of the long valley that lead down to the crater. There were multiple insect-like beasts the size of houses. In a group that large, it was hard to make out how many different types of creatures there were, but the more daunting thought was the fact that they were steadily walking together in the same direction.

The redhead slowly lowered the binoculars, "Fuck me…"

******

It was close to an hour later that Vincent heard the ShinRa Sniper team call over their radios when the horde reached a point about one and a half miles away. A series of small explosives went off across the snow covered valley, triggering an avalanche. There was not quite enough snow to completely bury the horde, but it did slow them down. They began to dig themselves out and continued forward with the single minded purpose of wind-up toys.

As the beasts emerged from the snow, Vincent set his rifle, firing a few well-placed shots at the largest creatures. These monsters were large and had thick hides or chitin, it was taking him at least two shots to down each one. Even hitting each time, there was a good chance he would run out of ammo before they got inside of three hundred yards.

As the ShinRa rocket launchers went off down below, the other Snipers turned to stare at Vincent. Who was firing over fifteen-hundred yards without a spotter. After a moments brief discussion, the ShinRa snipers tightened their bootstraps and decided they were not going to let him out-do them and started sighting down range.

Looking up to check the field for another target, Vincent saw a burst of yellow energy shoot out from the balcony across the village accompanied by a woman's laugh. It obliterated a boulder a few hundred feet shy of the horde and left a toxic-looking yellow smoke that seemed to eat away at the remaining portion of the rock. Clearly a test shot to check the range of the weapon. Vincent heard the reaction that was picked up from the ShinRa team's radio.

"You'd think she would pick something that wouldn't be so dangerous for us…" Kunsel muttered.

"Good News, Everyone!" Reno exclaimed in mock joy, "Scarlet made another weapon that will leave a fuck-ton of collateral damage."

When the ShinRa troops opened fire with their Machine guns, Scarlet also let loose with her weapon which left clouds of gas on the field. The monsters behind quickly adjusted to go around them. Clearly no one had the guts to tell her how to use it tactically, she should have been putting a solid line of the stuff across the valley.

"Are… are they eating each other?" Blake asked after taking a shot. Vincent quickly turned his scope to down a smaller creature with a single shot then watched as a few of the injured, surrounding creatures stopped long enough to tear off large bloody chunks to eat as they trudged forward. Probably some crude method of regeneration or healing.

He pulled away from the scope and checked the field again. "Cloud," he said into the comms, "Less than a minute for summon range."

"Roger that," Cloud said, signaling to the rest of Avalanche. At this point they were all standing together, near the southern side of the line. Only a handful of troops between them and the Turks. It was obvious to everyone that they were still considered an outside element.

Yuffie waved cheerfully at her former fellow-captive. Elena just looked away trying to put aside the thoughts of the voice mail that the ninja had left on her friend's phone. Of course Reno blew those efforts out of the water. "Where is Walker anyway?" Reno asked conversationally. Nearly every member of Avalanche turned to him, and several glares were obvious. Behind the redhead, Elena and Kunsel exchanged a look. The Turk was confused at the sudden animosity that came from Avalanche. "What?" he asked.

There was a moment of silence as no one spoke. Then Cait Sith's voice came over the comms so that only Avalanche could hear. "Sounds like he doesn't know, he only just got back to Midgar this morning…"

Tifa glanced at Cloud, then simply responded coolly, "You don’t need to worry about her."

Reno hid his annoyance. Just his fucking luck, she was probably hiding somewhere with the Black Materia. At least he had plenty of targets on which to take out his frustrations.

When the first of the horde got within a hundred yards they were met with a succession of summons. Vincent continued with his sniper shots and several other members of Avalanche were reserving their mana and making sure the ShinRa didn't try anything.

Not that the troops could do anything but stare as the mythical beings came up one after the other, a flying ice woman and giant that had set up their defenses, a large white serpent, a strange multi horned bull-like creature, a giant bird made of fire and a massive red dragon came out in sequence, no more than two of them active at once in order to stay out of each other's way. The combination of Leviathan, who summoned a tidal wave, and Shiva who froze the creatures within it was extremely effective. All in all it took a few minutes for the cycle to complete, ending with a flare attack from the dragon in the center of the ceaseless ranks.

When the smoke and steam settled the troops were surprised that there were still monsters moving. Still, the combined efforts did as intended, it scattered the enemy making it less likely that the defenders would be overwhelmed.

They were still ridiculously outnumbered. There was no way they could stop all of this, eight members of Avalanche, three Turks, some SOLDIERS and a few score of mundane troops, even with that ridiculous weapon Scarlet had cooked up. They just had to remember, they were only here to delay the enemy, not defeat it. When the villagers were all on board, they could retreat to their respective vehicles and clear out.

When the enemies met the next range marker, SOLDIERs and Avalanche alike began with an assault of magical spells. Mostly Yuffie, Cait Sith and Red XIII while the other members of Avalanche prepared for close combat.

The first of the beasts to close ranks were bandersnatches with strangely moving fur, the pack leapt over the ditch. Several were caught on the icicles but others cleared the obstacle and made contact with Avalanche and the SOLDIERs.

On first contact, Cloud and the two First Class SOLDIER's deftly cut their wolves in two. Cid had set his spear and caught one on it, the weight of the twitching creature nearly bore him to the ground. Tifa, Rude and Elena finished their targets in similar fashion with a quick succession of blows and the sound of cracking bone. Reno struck his with the full power of his mog-rod on the initial hit, causing it to writhe wildly as he followed up on more attacks. Barret and the troops were still firing over the earthen berm made by Titan earlier.

It was good to have the cover, as range attacks from other monsters came in. The defending gunmen now changed targets to those creatures who posed a more immediate threat to the front line instead of the lumbering giants that remained in the back.

Yuffie and Cait Sith soon found themselves casting _Barriers_ on anyone they could reach with their magic as Red XIII joined the fray, a mass of fur and teeth only distinguished from the enemy by his distinct red coloring.

Gunfire and explosions sounded around them, magic and monstrous energy attacks flew through the air. The mob of monsters came in a scattered, but never ending stream across the line of defense. The gunners did what they could to fell or wounded creatures before they got to the SOLDIERs. Avalanche's side fared better at close range, but they only had Blake and Vincent for dedicated cover fire. Barret did what he could, but his weapon was better suited to a much shorter range.

The battlefield was pure chaos.

Back on the ridge Vincent's lip curled into a wicked smirk at the thought. Heh, why not? Their enemy was plain, something that he and the entity could agree on. Besides, he was still pissed that this had interrupted their plans. How many more hours, even days would Ralena be subject to Hojo with this delay?

It was time to end this.

He stood and left the sniper rifle on the ground. "Blake, return to the Highwind."

The crewman looked up at Vincent, then went wide-eyed when he saw the gunman's yellowing eyes. The younger man wasted no time in packing up their gear, he looked at the ShinRa sniper next to him. "Time to go!"

The others sniper looked confused and watched Vincent jump down, a good thirty feet onto the ground below. They watched in disbelief as the man simply stalked out on to the field, both pistols drawn.

For Vincent, the world lost color except for his targets.

***

"What the hell is he doing? Is he crazy!?"

Cloud looked up at the shout from the ShinRa Trooper, then to where the man was looking. He easily spotted the red clad gunman walking onto the battlefield, striding forward with steady even steps and emptying the clips in his handguns with deadly accuracy. He saw a pulse of energy ripple through the snow where his feet landed with each step and the strange lifelike movement of his cloak. Cloud cursed before shouting into his comm, "CHAOS ON DECK!"

"Are you fucking serious?" Cid's voice came out, "NOW!?"

"Yes," the answering voice was Vincent's and not. There was an unnatural reverb that came through it. Cloud had to fight down a chill that had nothing to do with the cold.

"Barret, Yuffie! Give him some cover fire!" Cloud ordered.

An arcing blast of lightning landed near Vincent, throwing snow and bits of icy rock into the air. Before the debris could settle a black winged form shot up into the air, spiraling around before its midnight wings snapped out. The creature let out a roar and dropped down into a cluster of parasites, clumsy, floating creatures that looked like some kind of amoeba. On landing, black fire burst around chaos and incinerated the lot.

"What the fuck is that!?" a trooper shouted, turning his gun towards Chaos.

With the man distracted, another monster closed in on him and Tifa ran up on it with a quick combo. "Don't shoot it!" she shouted, loud enough for the nearest troops to hear. "Yuffie! Help him!"

"Wha-? _How_?"

"Barrier's would be a good start!"

Chaos was spoiled for choice. So many enemies with that hated creatures taint coursing through their veins. It might have to find a way to thank its host later, after all, he was letting Chaos run free right now. Barrier magic settled over it and the entity grinned at the concerns of his host's companions. It flew low across the valley and further away from the front lines, trailing dark fire and screaming monsters. The flames would take this disease and purge this unnatural element from the mother. As it approached the other end of the valley it pulled up into the air again, turned and brought up a hand.

Cloud rushed over to the nearest S1, knowing they were giving the orders. "That black winged summon is ours!" He shouted, knowing very well that he didn't have to for the man to hear him. Calling it a summon was an out and out lie, and Cloud was sure that were they not in the heat of battle anyone would have been able to tell.

A gigas jumped into the air and landed in front of the pair, Cloud and Kunsel immediately turned and cut into it. "Are you sure?" Kunsel asked as he slashed across the giant's side. "It looks wild." The man wasn't sure how he could tell, but something about it seemed different than the other summons he had seen.

The giant moved to swipe at the S1, allowing Cloud to slice into its arm. It recoiled as the Buster Sword scraped against bone. "It's hard to control," he admitted.

Chaos landed on the back of a behemoth, the creature's mane was clumped together and wrapped around Chaos' legs. The entity curled its lip and the appendages immediately turned to ash. Chaos slapped it's hand down on the back of its neck and the ground warped under the creature in the shape of a skull. Smoke and flame surrounded the beast from above and below and it bellowed and thrashed under the assault.

The Turks had moved to the side of their forces closest to Avalanche. The slight gap between the two groups was beginning to fill with glacier monsters, and they needed to be cleared. "You guys find the craziest shit!" Reno yelled, beating back another wolf as Rude came up beside him. Elena drew her pistol and downed three gremlins that tried to sneak up along the walls of the trench.

Lightning magic went off on the Turk's left. "Aww, are you jealous?" A grinning Yuffie taunted, she threw her Shuriken, and cast a quick fire spell before the weapon returned.

"Heh, maybe a bit," Reno smirked.

"Then maybe _you_ should join _us_."

"What?" Reno grunted, kicking a gremlin, "And give up my dental?"

The teen threw her weapon again and made a face, "I don't know what that means, but it sounds lame!"

"Yuffie!" Barret scolded, "Stop flirtin' and focus!"

"Oh, Gawd, no way! He's ShinRa, so he's gross!"

"Hey!" Reno squawked, not sure if he should really be offended.

Beside the redhead, Rude snorted and muttered, "So much for your fan club." The bald man then sent out a fire spell of his own as Reno let out an irritated scoff.

Leaving the behemoth a charred and smoking husk, Chaos continued to move around the battlefield. Going between taking out a large target or scattering and destroying clusters of smaller ones. Wherever the winged beast went, it left ash and exposed rock and dirt that had been covered by snow for years.

As Cid, Barret and Nanaki downed a malboro another creature, this one a humanoid with long blades on its hands and feet leapt, over the corpse and pounced on Cid. The pilot just got his spear up and caught it on the end, but it continued to slash in a frenzy despite the wound. It raked its claws over his front and tore holes into the fabric that was beginning to stain red. Cid felt something in his clothes press against him under the assault then fall out of his now torn pocket. The small black orb tumbled onto the ground and Cid's eyes went wide. Magic from Cait Sith struck the creature on top of him, scorching it and causing it to go still. Cid quickly leaned the spear aside, taken by the weight of his dead foe and rolled on to his hands and knees and reached for the Black Materia.

"Cid lookout!" Another monster had moved up on him and a rush of wind magic hit him. The captain flattened himself against to ground to keep from being tossed by the wind, he grunted in pain as the ground pushed against fresh wounds. His attacker was thrown back over the ground that hand been churned up from all of the fighting and into the trench that was quickly filling with monster bodies. Cid looked back up and his eyes quickly scanned the ground. Unable to find the object in the immediate chaos.

"Shit!" Cid cursed, "Rock and Roll, guys!"

"Tell me you're joking…" Tifa groaned in exasperation.

Cloud only spared a glance to see who was nearest to the captain. "Cait, Barret! Focus on retrieval!" he ordered into the comms, quietly enough to not be heard by nearby ShinRa troops. "Cid keep them guarded. Yuffie, Tifa pull back here and help me hold the line. Nanaki you go where you think you're most needed."

*******

The change in Avalanche's battle formation was obvious and Reno did his best to get a view of their activity while not getting skewered himself. "What are they doin'?" he asked aloud.

Rude, who had been listening more than bantering, answered his partner's question. "They fumbled the object."

Reno's head whipped back to look at Rude, then he ducked as Elena shot something behind him and Kunsel rushed up to take down another blade handed creature. "Are you fucking serious?" Reno cried, "NOW!?"

The SOLDIER gave a look back to the redhead, "What is it?"

"They dropped something we need," he answered, "You got this?"

"You're kidding, right?" Kunsel said hesitantly.

"Good," Reno replied, taking the response as an affirmative "Elena, cover me! Rude, let's go!"

******

Barret saw the Black Materia tumble over the ground into his vision. A swarm of small glowing eyed rodents swarmed towards it and he fired, full auto into the mass. "Did he turn fucking _squirrels_!?"

"It's not surprising," came a voice over the comms, "smaller creatures could turn faster, then reproduce on their own and the versatility is-"

"Shut UP Cait Sith!" Barret shouted, advancing towards the swarm while trying to keep an eye out to see if any one of rodents left with the Doom Marble. Reno also dashed in, Rude clearing his path from the creatures coming at them from the flank.

Just as Reno was about to come up on the gun-armed man, a mass of red fur rushed up and ran into his chest. Reno wheezed as he backed up, several slashes cut into his suit revealing his thin under armor where Red XIII's bladed headdress cut against him. "Barret, hurry!" the feline said.

Rude moved to join his partner, but found himself dodging a shuriken. That gave Cid the time he needed to move up beside the feline, blocking the Turks' path.

Reno smirked, "Does this mean we can't be friends anymore?"

A burst of black fire from Chaos erupted on the other side of the trench, showering them with bits of rock, ice and smoldering flesh. The four began to move in on each other. Before they made contact, a blast of yellow energy landed between them and Barret, tossing all five of them and a number of the corrupted rodents in different directions.

"Fuck, Scarlet!" Reno yelled as he pulled himself up from the ground, "Watch where yer-" The Turk suddenly stopped when he saw the woman _leap_ off of the balcony and land a good fifty feet closer to them. Rushing to meet up with one of the furballs running towards her, a black marble in its mouth. She reached out to it grinning and licking her teeth. She met Reno's eyes with her own blue, cat-slitted ones. "Fuck me! She's one of them!"

"I knew it!" Elena cried out, shooting a creature that tried to come up behind Rude. Red XIII was already back up but was taking a moment use magic to burn away the rest of the noxious cloud before they fell into it.

The small mammal made it to Scarlet, "Thank you dar-" Just as she got her hands on it several bullets impacted on her and the animal, forcing her to drop the orb as she recoiled in pain. Both Elena and Barret advanced on her with steady fire, forcing her to move back from the Black Materia.

Shrieking with rage, Scarlet reached for the object again as thick red blood seeped from her wounds like tree sap. A bolt of lightning landed off in front of her, setting her hair on end. When it cleared, Reno and Rude were there, pushing her back with well-orchestrated coordinated attacks.

It was a good thing that Scarlet was an impatient woman, Reno thought as he struck low, striking her knee while Rude went for her face. If she had played it cool who knew the damage she could have done back at the tower.

Being more agile, Elena easily beat Barret to the Black Materia, diving for it and rolling when she as her fingers closed on it. "I got it," she whispered harshly into her own comms, not wanting to risk Scarlet's attention. "I'm retreating to the chopper!" Barret moved to level his gun at the blonde but a shout from Cid had the gunman turn to see another Gigas come up upon the pilot. Barret gritted his teeth and turned his weapon on the creature.

Nanaki quickly downed another of the scythe handed humanoids from behind and ran after the blonde Turk. He came up short as a figure landed in front of him. The S1 took up a guard position as Elena moved further away. "I have been spending a lot of time covering her ass lately," the SOLDIER muttered.

The feline attempted to get passed the man, darting to one side and then the other, but the SOLDIER was fast enough to match his movements. Nanaki's nostrils flared in frustration as the scent reached his brain. His eye narrowed at the man. "You," he growled, "You were there…,".

"What?"

The feline snarled and charged, Kunsel made a move to dodge but the creature leapt unexpectedly, landed behind him and swiped at the back of his legs. The SOLDIER was still hurt but managed to avoid serious injury to his hamstrings. He turned, only to get a face-full of fire magic, followed up with another attack. "You took our sister from us," his opponent grunted.

"I have never seen another one of you," Kunsel replied, confused at the beast's accusations.

Red XIII's lips curled to display sharp fangs. He knew better to assume that any one of those people would know her name. He recognized this scent, this man was at the beach. He was one of the ones who took Ralena away. "We want the one with red hair back." His animal side howled for blood while his intelligent brain tried to remind him of the other threats nearby.

The white disk of the moon appeared behind Nanaki and he howled, the moonlight settled over his form and changed to a dull red glow that clung to his form.

Kunsel's eyes went wide, "aww… shit."

*******

Rude ran down the empty street after Scarlet who was chasing Elena. A number of other monsters converged on them and Reno had been forced to stay behind to fight them off with some lower rank SOLDIERs so that Rude could stop the crazed executive. Spotting a propane tank up ahead, Rude threw a fire spell out ahead of them. It burst in front of Scarlet who recoiled at the heat.

The woman apparently still had human instincts and did not go diving through the fire. Giving Rude the chance he needed to catch up to her. He swung a fist at her but she managed to catch it. "So you want to play rough, do you?"

Rude did not have the chance to respond as rapidly approaching footsteps shifted and a leg kicked Scarlet's out from under her. "I don't play, bitch"

Rude couldn't help but cast Tifa a surprised look for a second, as the brawler moved to stomp down on Scarlet's leg. Given her heels, the woman regained her footing faster than she had a right to. They both moved in on the blonde woman, backing her against a house, which gave Rude the chance to raise a questioning brow at her.

"Better you have it than Sephiroth," Tifa huffed.

"The day's not over yet," Scarlet said with a smirk. Something in her hand beeped and cloud a smoke enveloped all three of them.

*******

"The townsfolk are all loaded up!" Cloud yelled, relaying the information from the Highwind. While the others had started to scramble after the Black Materia and the Turks, he called for Cait Sith and Yuffie to stay with him and help hold the line with magic. Cid and Barret were also still nearby, having had no choice but to stop and fight the horde rather than chase after the object.

"Ours too," the S1 commander said, "Fall back!" At the call, Yuffie and Cait Sith called up Leviathan and Typhon to push back the nearest monsters with wind and wave, allowing all of the defenders to withdraw more quickly.

"Barret, when everyone gets to the square, can you give me a wall?" Cloud asked.

There was a reluctant grunt preceding a response of, "Sure thing, as long as you cover me."

Cloud quickly moved to meet the requirement. Moving up behind Barret and blasting several of the nearby trailing creatures. "Cid!" he yelled, "Stop playing around and help me open a window!"

"What the fuck do you think I'm doing? Playin' poker!?"

He knew that Cid was beating himself up about losing the Black Materia, but there was little they could do about it now. "We're gonna have to take the loss on this one!" Cloud shouted. They may as well, they had plans to go into Midgar really soon anyway. "Surviving today is more important!"

As the last troop made his way into the square, Cloud and Cid laid down area magic while Barret summoned Alexander to block the main road into the rest of town. It wouldn't buy them much time, but it seconds mattered here.

*******

Kunsel was never more happy to hear the call to withdraw. The dimly glowing red beast was hot on his heels as he backed up. It kept snapping and clawing at him and already had several bloody slashes about his body from the animal's headdress and claws. Still, he couldn't just turn and run, the beast was probably as fast as he was and in its feral state it would certainly run him down. He wasn't exactly afraid, but the objective right now _was_ to get the hell outta dodge.

Remembering something the woman did on the beach, Kunsel shot forth an ice spell but aimed it more towards the ground at the beasts feet. Once the ice formed around its paws, Kunsel turned to join the other ShinRa forces retreating to the helicopters.

A fierce growl ripped its way out of Nanaki's throat as he tugged at his paws, "RETURN HER!" he roared. He brought forth fire magic, aiming the spell at his feet singing his fur and melting the ice that held him to the ground. Once free, he bolted after the man but a mass of white scales intercepted him.

"It's time to go!" Yuffie yelled, coming up behind him as the Leviathan summon continued to block his path. "Don't give yourself to them, baka!"

"But-"

"No!" she interrupted, giving a quick tug on his tail. "Being impulsive and stupid is my job, get to the ship!"

"What are you two doing!" Tifa shouted, running up to them. Her eyes were watery and burning. Fortunately Nanaki's tail was an easy thing to make out. Scarlet had dropped tear gas on them. Rude had pulled her out of the cloud but by the time Tifa could remotely see again she was long gone and the order to retreat had been given.

"We're going!" Yuffie said pointedly, looking sharply at Red XIII.

"Yes, we are," he growled reluctantly.

*******

Chaos watched as the scrambling creatures beneath him finally lost their single minded will and began to scatter in different directions. He spotted a red clad woman dashing down the valley and fired several casual shots after her, missing, but hitting some other creatures in the process. A low rumble of dissatisfaction left its throat.

Its power was waning, bound to a mortal as it was, it was unable to unleash its full power and fully destroy all that remained in the snow.

This displeased Chaos, but for now it would have to retreat to rest.

Yellow eyes flashed red for a moment, and Chaos felt the will of its host. He wanted to fly further, to go south towards the ringed city. While Chaos was a primal creature, it was by no means stupid. It could not stay in this shape much longer. Its host's body could not take the strain, especially with how badly he had been taking care of himself. To turn back over the ocean would spell death for them both. Easily ignoring its host's wants, it went for the metal ship that the host knew as his current home.

Chaos would drag his host's mind down to the realm of sleep. From there it was unlikely he could wake himself until his body got its rest.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ugh.... I took the extra week and I am still not satisfied with this chapter. To be fair I had also been dreading it...


	34. The Arms of ShinRa

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Someone You Should See; In the Dark Room; Eyes on Target; Delays; Special Report; Nice to Meet You, Mr President; Gonna Be Sick; Our Boss

Someone You Should See

In the Dark Room 

Eyes on Target

Delays

Special Report

Nice to Meet You, Mr President

Gonna Be Sick 

Our Boss

The evening after Icicle Inn had the Turks in a strange headspace. They had succeeded in their mission and retrieved the Black Materia. They had also to report Scarlet's defection. It had been a surprise in the moment, but in hind-sight signs were there, they had just been hard to detect given Scarlet's normal level of weird.

After an in-person report to Rufus on the situation. Reno had been the first one out of the Turk's shared quarters. A quick shower and a change of clothes later he headed out to get himself dinner. The deployment for Icicle Inn had him miss lunch. Rude may have been satisfied with just a granola bar, but Reno was famished.

The three agreed to meet at the food-court on the 58th floor before heading out on the town for some drinks to celebrate. Elena took a little coaxing, as she did not think it was very professional. Again her seniors had to remind her that this was not just about drinking (which, admittedly was a big part of it). It was also about bonding and winding down after a hard day so that she would not die from stress before her first year was over.

Thinking about the day, Reno suspiciously eyed his fries. Why did Avalanche have the Black Materia on the field? When he didn't see the redhead among them he assumed she must have been guarding it somewhere. While there was a level misdirection that could account for, it seemed just plain stupid for them to have it on them with so many ShinRa people around. He had briefly suspected that she was guarding Valentine while he was sniping, but once he spotted the former Turk he noticed just a crew member with him. So where was she, and why wasn't she the one with the Black Materia?

"Reno, you got a minute?" said a voice, interrupting his thoughts.

The Turk in question looked up and saw a dark-haired man with a trimmed goatee in a nice blue suit. This was interesting, what would Reeve want to say directly to him? He had been careful in Cait Sith's role at the village, focusing on defense and healing once the object got fumbled, careful not to play favorites too much. Reno leaned back in his chair and cocked his head lazily to the side, "Reeve Tuesti… what does the Head of Urban _Non_-Development need to talk to me about?" he mocked.

"That wasn't my call," Reeve said defensively, then waved it off, it wasn't what he was here for. This was a message he had to get out. Since he met her as Cait Sith, there had been something about Ralena that had seemed familiar to Reeve. Recently he found the time to compare her files with a few others. What he found was not enough to prove his theory, but he had to do something. It had the chance to save her from Hojo before Avalanche moved. "There's someone you need to talk to."

"ho?" The Turk replied in mock interest, "Why?"

Reeve resisted the urge to tell him directly. This man needed to be led by orders or curiosity, and Reeve didn’t have the authority to give him orders. "Let's just say there is a prisoner on the 65th floor in cell 7 that I think would interest you." He should have done this sooner. Hojo had already had his claws back in her for a week, but he hadn't been sure. The records were suggestive at best, a vague outline of a possible truth. That was how Reeve operated with his little secrets and suggestions. Now that Avalanche was delayed again on the rescue mission it was the only play he had. If he didn't give Vincent some good news the man was going to do something stupid when he woke up. Besides, there was a chance that this would work even if his guess was wrong.

"Really?" the red head sounded bored, but his interest was piqued nonetheless.

The spy looked around, pointedly noting the absence of any company. "You got something else going on?"

"Maybe I do," Reno said, reaching to his plate, then reclining back and popping a fry in his mouth. He liked filling his stomach after a good fight, and the Icicle Inn attack had been one helluva fight.

Reeve shrugged, "Just a suggestion, there were a few things in the file I found interesting is all. Thought you'd want to look into it." With that, he left. He had stacked the deck, he just had to hope that Reno would call just to see the cards.

The Turk's blue eyes followed the department head as he left. What he knew of Reeve's work and opinions pointed at him being one of the more moral members of the ShinRa board, even if he was a two-faced spy. Hell, he was probably the only one still on the board that the 'moral' applied to easily. Maybe being a little skilled in espionage is what it took to stay alive in the gilded shitstorm that was the ShinRa Electric & Power Company.

A minute later he texted Rude and started towards the elevator.

**Reno: ** _Checking on something upstairs. Will be on call._

***********

It was late when he found himself by the door of the 65th floor prison block. Sephiroth wasn't quite sure how he had ended up there, but he never did. He sometimes walked aimlessly when his mind was working in its own philosophical ramblings. Late at night in the Tower was the only time he could allow himself this luxury.

Sephiroth had left his piano some time ago, tonight it was insufficient to help him sort through his thoughts. Genesis had been injured in the training room yesterday, Angeal had intervened to try and stop their match when they had gotten too into it. As usual, Genesis would not yield. This time he was more passionate than usual and broke the standard issue sword that Angeal normally used. The blade flew off and cut into Genesis' shoulder. As was typical of him, the auburn haired man just shrugged it off and walked out, quoting _Loveless_ all the way.

All this because the ShinRa had chosen to make him, Sephiroth, the "great hero" of the Wutai War. Genesis and Angeal were virtually foot notes despite their actual contributions. Angeal cared little, knowing that Sephiroth had nothing to do with it. Genesis on the other hand, was bristling every time it got brought up, insisting that he would take Sephiroth's title. As if it was a trophy, or that the world could only have one hero. Of course, Sephiroth baited the other SOLDIER, it wasn't in his nature to do anything halfway. If Genesis wanted a win against him, he would have to earn it.

Foolishness.

Angeal had certainly let him hear it too. Another speech about honor and duty. He was a SOLDIER and a hero. He should not belittle their friend, he should be gracious and humble. Sephiroth had bit back a comment or two. If he pretended to be humble, Genesis would see straight through it and be even more frustrated.

He opened the door to the cell block and walked into the empty guard room. It seemed like poor security, but when one couldn't even leave the block without a keycard, he didn't feel it was too lax. It was probably empty right now anyway.

Afterall, he and the Turks had not had not brought anyone in here recently.

Yes, he was quite the "hero" wasn't he? Not just some guard dog… All the things he'd done so far, every aspect of his career had been for the sake of the corporation, or in some cases just for the president's twisted enjoyment. Few of the things he did would ever be considered _good_, not when it boiled down to it. He took orders and killed for a living. Where would that leave him later? To only be respected by SOLDIER's and to be feared by nearly all others. The fact remained that without Angeal and Genesis he would have been little more than a living, breathing weapon.

He opened the door to the cell block, as though he was doing rounds and stopped at a sound.

This prison level of the ShinRa tower was only for special prisoners. Most others were in a facility in Sector 8. As he got closer to the only cell where the slide over the window was closed, he was able to make out crying. Who the hell was in there?

He should probably leave. No good would come of him getting involved in this. Taking what he thought would be his final step closer, he felt strange as the desire to flee and a kind of sad hopelessness washed over him. His lips tightened, this could not be tolerated. He was a First Class SOLDIER, and a general. If the sight of a _door_ made him want to flee then he would have to see what was behind it.

When he slid the window open he saw that the light of the cell had been off. Beside the bed he was able to make out a form curled up on the floor. Perhaps she was the daughter of someone being held for leverage. It wouldn't be the first time. After a moment the girl's crying paused and she looked up to see him through the window. He was startled to see she had glowing green mako eyes, similar to his.

"Is it time to go back?" she sniffled, her voice was timid and quiet. He didn't answer, after a long enough pause she asked another question. "Or… am I going to the doctor?"

He was confused that he actually felt a spark of fear at the name, he was able to banish it quickly, but it lingered in the air around him like a fog. He had no doubts as to who "the doctor" would be. Few that would hold the title had the power to lock someone up on this level and use it. To be truthful, only one.

Hojo.

He pushed the button to turn the light on in her cell. She blinked and straightened up. The girl wore plain white clothes that resembled medical scrubs, short red hair topped her head and he could see that she was older than he first thought. Her hair was very short, a buzz cut with about a months' worth of growth, if he had to guess. "How long have you been here?" he asked.

At the question he saw her relax a little, he was also surprised to notice that her eyes dimmed to hazel and the inexplicable undercurrent of fear he had been feeling disappeared. "I don't know. The doctor got mad because I disobeyed him…"

"How long has the doctor had you?" He clarified.

"I was six when I was selected," she answered, wiping her face. Sephiroth was familiar with the precise way she answered.

He had been trained from an early age to respond in a similar way.

The girl must have been in her early teens at least, and that surprised him. While Sephiroth knew that he was not aware of all of Hojo's experiments, the fact that he had a captive human subject for that many years was surprising to him. She must have been important. She had been here so long, she probably did not even know who he was, or anything about him. "What's your name?" he asked finally.

"Huh?" the question received confusion as a response.

"Your name. What is it?"

"Why?" she asked bitterly, "You won't use it."

"Who is going to stop me?" He smirked.

She looked at him surprised and doubtful all at once. "It- it's... Ruh-lay-nuh."

He resisted the urge to wince. She said her own name slow and stumbling, as if she was unsure of the sound of it. "Ralena? My name is Sephiroth."

There was a pause. "Sephiroth?" she started hesitantly.

"Yes."

She looked like she was going to ask something, but changed her mind. "Never mind."

"Are you always in here?" He knew the answer. If she had lived in this cell he would have seen or heard of her long before now, and she mentioned 'going back' earlier.

She shook her head, "The doctor sends me here when I am obstinate."

Were it not for the fact that she probably picked up most of her vocabulary from Hojo himself, Sephiroth would have found the choice of words odd for someone her age. "Is your room nice?"

She seemed confused at the question. "It's bigger than this, and I have books."

"Do you know where it is? The number on it?"

She turned slightly away from him, suddenly on the defensive, these were not likely questions she was used to hearing. These questions meant something different, but she wasn't sure what, "Why?"

Why _was_ he asking? He wasn't really sure himself. He had be roaming the halls a lot since the war was winding down, as though he had been looking for something. Maybe looking for something new to focus on, the other S1s had. Angeal had gotten himself an apprentice to train and Genesis had a new stage version _of Loveless_ to praise and criticize. "I have to go somewhere for a week or so, but when I get back, I thought I might come talk to you again."

She gave him a doubtful look, "Really?"

"Yes."

She thought a moment longer, looking at him both critically and warily. He remembered this feeling. When the people he encountered started to include individuals outside of his instructors and the science department. What he now knew to be common courtesy, he thought of as strange, and strange behavior was not to be trusted. After a bit more thought, she told him her room number.

"Thank you," he replied, and again she looked shocked. She had probably never been thanked, either. "I have to go now, I have to get up early in the morning."

"Umm... Sephiroth?"

"Yes?"

"What time is it?"

It was such a simple question, and yet she said it in a way that it seemed as though it meant the world to her. Had she gone all these years without being treated like a person? He had no doubt that Professor Hojo and the other scientists saw her as nothing more than a specimen, and apparently never used her real name. He looked at his watch surprised, he must have been deep in thought for him to not realize the time until now. "It's almost 0200 hours… two in the morning."

"Mama never let me stay up this late."

Her parents were probably dead or at least thought she was. "I have to go now." He began to turn away, then stopped. "Ralena..."

There was a delay in her reaction, like she forgot the name he used was her own. "Yes?"

"Don't tell anyone about me ok? If that happened, I doubt I could come see you again and there would be trouble, alright?"

She nodded timidly, like someone used to doing what she was told and being punished for disobeying. "Yes, sir."

He grimaced, Sephiroth hated that term when it wasn't said with a soldier's confidence. He had grown so tired of everyone calling him that. Also, when she said it there was a strange tone to it, like she only knew how to say it when it was laced with fear. "Please don't call me 'sir.' Goodnight, Ralena."

"Good night… Sephiroth, please leave the light on."

"Of course."

***********

Ralena was an ungodly amount of sore.

She might be in better shape, if she had not been so violently resistant.

She had been conscious when Hojo started filling the damn Mako pod. No matter how many times she had been through it, she couldn't help but freak out when the liquid came in. Breathing mask be damned, being in an enclosed container filling with liquid was a panic inducing experience. She knew for a fact that Hojo got some sort of perverse pleasure from watching her reaction.

She almost forgot about how much the Mako baths messed with her head, visions would always float around in her mind. Dull, hazy fragments of other people's lives. Alien memories tried to make their way into her body and clung to her like oil. She would see them, as if someone shone multiple unfocused channel surfing projectors over the world. The sound of them was a bunch of radios, barely loud enough to hear that kept cutting in and out and moving around. In addition, the Mako exposure caused a constant dull ache over her entire being. Way back when, she would still be sore for two or three days afterward. But she never realized how awful it could be when she didn't have time recover, she'd had three Mako baths in the past… six-ish days? Time already lost its meaning, inconstant sleep, the occasional sedative and the absence of a visible clock all contributed.

Ralena was sure that they wouldn't have let her shower if it wasn't for the fact that Mako was toxic. "Shower" was a generous term, Hojo had them spray her down like an animal. He had succeeded in humiliating her a little with that move, but she had a strange sense of satisfaction that she wasn't considered an obedient little subject anymore. After she had dressed, Hojo had her drugged again and she had woken up in the cell. Likely he did not want her talking about his plans. Not that she had any reason to even try to convince the guards, why would they believe her? It wouldn’t be hard to imagine that she would lie through her teeth to get away from this place.

She shook her head, then waited for the dizziness to settle. She had to get word out about him spreading Jenova cells, she did not care to who. Now that she was on alert for it, she knew that one of the guards currently on duty was carrying them as well. She had no indication of incubation period or potency or timing… or even what the intended effects would be. Next time the guards came by she would just have to tell the them that she wanted to talk to the president… or maybe the Turks would be a better ask. She'd never actually met any of them, so that would be interesting.

Wow… was meeting some of their enemies a highlight of her day now?

*******

Reno swiped his card to gain entrance to the cell block and the guards stood up as he walked in. They had been under strict orders since the last escape. The disciplinary actions that came down from Scarlet and Heidegger meant that no one wanted to be caught slacking off. The guards relaxed a little when they recognized the Turk.

"What can we do for you, sir?" the younger troop asked.

"Gonna talk to the one in seven."

"A…are you sure sir?"

Reno tilted his head, he almost threatened the man, but the fact that the guard seemed more confused got him wondering. "Why shouldn't I?"

"Well… Hojo has ordered no unnecessary contact with her."

Reno resisted the urge to sneer at the scientist's name, he couldn't ruin his cool, nonchalant image with the grunts. "I just got some simple questions," Reno sighed, "I don't need to rough her up." Why had Reeve made a point to not mention it was a woman?... Or any details at all now that he thought about it?

"Let 'em in," the senior guard said casually, already settled back into his chair. "She asked to talk to the Turks when I brought her dinner anyway."

"Really?" Reno asked with genuine curiosity. Had Reeve pointed him here for a chat, or was this just a coincidence? "Then I guess I need ta talk to her more than I thought." The Turk gestured to the interior door and the guard complied. Once in the corridor Reno snatched his keycard from him, in case he wanted to open the door to the cell. "Scram, you don't need to hear this." After the door to the cellblock closed and locked behind him, he headed down to cell 7. He looked in the open porthole and noticed that the lights in the cell were off. The figure inside was laying on the bed, a knee up and an arm over her eyes. "Oy, wake up." It was too dark to make out more than her position and basic attire, which appeared to be all white.

"I'm not asleep," she muttered, "Tell that asshole Hojo I'm too sick from the spa treatment he gave me yesterday." Was it yesterday? Maybe it was this morning… Did the guard say which meal he brought?

Reno snickered, she was _sassy_. "Nah, I'm just here to ask you some questions. I'm turning on the lights." He warned her as a courtesy, he'd had enough hangovers to consider it proper manners. Without looking back in the viewport, he flipped the switch and opened the door. By that point she was sitting up looking at him.

Reno stopped dead in his tracks.

For a moment she was confused at his expression, her eyes flickered glowing green at the shock and disbelief that exploded from him. She stood and took a step back, not sure how to feel herself and almost losing her footing for a moment. She knew he was a Turk, she remembered the suit and the red hair. There was another something about him that she couldn't put her finger on, but with his tumultuous emotional state flying in her face and her Mako addled brain, it was hard for her to think.

He reached a hand lamely forward, but it barely got as high as his waist, even so she took another half step back and swayed slightly.

It couldn't be. Not here. He had suspected, but now that he was looking at her, he couldn't believe it.

She was dead. They told him she was dead.

He never saw the body.

He was too young and stupid to ask about that kind of confirmation back then.

"R… Ral, is it you?"

She coughed out a breath, she couldn't bring herself to talk for several seconds. Long enough that he was beginning to doubt the reality. The name that eluded her memory for years still refused to come to mind. Even without a name, she knew who he was, "Big brother?"

For several long moments, neither of them moved, as though afraid the moment was some kind of hallucination or lapse in sanity. In Ralena's case that was a solid possibility. Finally Reno moved forward and enveloped her in a tight hug.

"Fifteen years," he whispered hoarsely, "For fifteen years I thought… I thought you were..."

Finally, her brain caught up to what her senses were telling her. He was here. He was _real_. She never imagined that this was a reunion that she would experience. She wrapped her arms around him as if to give herself further proof.

The siblings held onto each other for a long while until an untimely wave of dizziness hit her. She swayed dangerously and Reno's hands moved to steady her. He quickly sat her down on the bed and watched as she closed her eyes and waited for the spell to pass.

Looking more closely at her now, he realized how bad she really looked. He turned her towards himself, her glowing green eyes opened halfway. Compared to his, her skin was pale with a slight tint of green and she had bandages wrapped around her forearms.

He saw her Mako eyes dim back to normal. "What did that psycho do to you?"

"The usual," she said, with a weak, placating smile. "Just… more of it."

_The usual?_ His eyes turned dark, "I'm going to kill him."

She felt panic rise in her, she didn't want to risk her only family after barely meeting him. "No! That's not important right now."

"Not important?" he asked quietly, "They knew why I joined up. They knew I came here so that I would have the resources to find you. They told me you were dead!" Her eyes pulsed with his sudden influx of anger. Reno would have struck something, had there been anything in the cell that would break. "Those fuckers lied to me!"

She had an almost pitying look on her face, "What makes you so special?"

A bitter laugh escaped his lips. "You're right. But seriously, what did Hojo do to you?"

She swallowed, "I don't… want to talk about it right now." She really didn't and if her time with Vincent had taught her anything, it was that managing other people's emotions was as important as one's own.

"Alright…" he said reluctantly.

"Besides there is something bigger going on right now, and I can't do anything about it in here." she stated. "Maybe you can."

"I can handle that and get you out," he said without thinking, "I just have to pull rank with the guards and I can-"

"You can't. He's gotten to one of them already."

"Who?"

Ralena closed her eyes tight, she had been thinking so much about telling someone she thought she told him already. "Hojo," she said carefully, making sure to form every word as she spoke them. "He's injected people in the tower with Jenova cells."

"You mean the SOLDIERs?"

She shook her head and regretted it, she brought a hand to her head and winced again. "No, most of his staff, one of the guards out there. I only just noticed, but… but I think it goes farther than just that."

"Are you sure it's not just Mako Brain?" He asked. It was well known to him how new SOLDIERs could be pretty addled after a treatment.

"I'm _positive,_" she said with conviction. "It feels just like Jenova, but weaker. I can sense it."

"'Sense it'? How the fuck can you '_sense it_'?"

How to explain it? Something that Hojo wasn't even entirely aware of the words required weren't coming together in her mind. Finally she said, "Hojo's an asshole and I have superpowers, ok?" She certainly didn't look like it right now. Her breathing was shallow, and speaking took effort.

Reno found himself thinking about how Elena had gone on about Scarlet 'being weird.' When she had flipped during the attack it seemed obvious now.

As obvious as those odd little social circles he had noticed forming lately... "I'll look into it. First, let's get you out of here."

"If you do that Hojo will know something's wrong. Do you even have the pull to get me out?"

"… not immediately," Reno admitted bitterly. Not if he didn't want it to look suspicious at least.

"Is Hojo busy?"

"What?"

"Is Hojo busy? If he is, I'm not going anywhere," she gestured to the room, "This is my cage. I'm too stubborn to have earned my old quarters back yet. If you need time to plan something, take it. A few more hours won't kill me, I promise."

He stared at her like she was a madwoman. "How can you…" He shook his head, he didn't need an answer right now. She was right. He tilted his head back and looked at the ceiling, he had to think. How could he handle this? What should his next move be?

He looked back at the woman beside him, she was leaned forward and the loose red tendrils of her hair blocked most of her face but she could see that she had her eyes closed. "Your hair used to be darker," he said suddenly. "More like dad's."

She turned to him and smirked, "Mako does bring out the vibrance doesn't it?"

He wanted to grin back, wanted to pretend they had run into each other at a bar. That finding her had been happy coincidence. Here she was, cracking jokes about being a lab rat, and he almost had to force himself to look at her in this sorry condition. "It's after office hours…" he said quietly, "I'll have you out in the morning."

"Promise?"

"Heh, sure."

He stepped out, closing the door behind him. The automatic lock thudded loud and ominous in his ears with his sister was on the other side. "Don't get too cozy," he said, putting his tough guy persona back on. "I'm sure I'll be seein' you again." He stomped to the end of the cell block and took a deep breath before yanking open the door to the guard room. "Thanks to Hojo's stupid 'no touching' rule I'll be back." He told the troops coldly, "I wanna know if anyone takes her out, including Hojo, got it?"

"Y.. Yes sir!"

He stalked out of the room, not needing to feign irritation. He jammed a button on the elevator and considered how much to tell his partner. Their team had bent the rules enough in the past. They never went against direct orders, but sometimes following rules to the letter, and creatively interpreting orders made them feel a little cleaner. They needed little wins like that, it helped you sleep better when alcohol wasn't enough to make you forget about destroying an entire section of the city…

With that thought he suddenly found himself glad that there was something to occupy his time other than catching up with his sister. There were things he had done that he didn't want her to know about. Blood or not, would she want anything to do with him?

Getting his phone out, he sent a text to Rude.

**Reno**: _Meet you. 5_

*******

Reno arrived at the balcony on the 53rd floor as Rude was finishing with disabling the surveillance cameras. Every set of partners needed a place they could talk privately, the only difference was that when Turks did it they _knew_ they weren't overheard. The bald man nodded to his partner, a signal for the all clear. He didn't have to ask if this was serious. The fact that he wanted to meet here so quickly and interrupt their celebration plans was evidence enough of that.

"I gotta ask a favor," Reno said.

Rude's eyebrows shot up, that was not something that he was expecting. He didn't even open with his usual, _Yo, partner_.

"First thing, if you don't want to help me, then that's fine, so long as you don't rat me out."

Rude was confused, why would he ever… "How dumb is it?"

"REALLY dumb."

"You're serious?"

He nodded grimly then leaned on the railing to looked out over the city. "She's here," he said, almost too quiet for Rude to hear.

It took Rude a minute, "Wait. You don't mean…"

"My little sister is here on the 65th floor."

Rude sucked in a breath through his teeth. As far as he knew, he was the only one around who still knew about Reno's sister. He rarely spoke of her, and only when they were alone. He never even told Rude her name. As if it was an embarrassing childhood wish to be reunited with dead family.

Over a decade ago Reno was one of many orphans and runaways that the ShinRa Company had "taken in." There was something to be said for raising your own work force, you got to mold them how you wanted, really assess who was best for what, and weed out the weak and disobedient. Oddly, knowing that was how it worked as an adult didn't make you any less loyal. Afterall where else would you go? It was likely that the head of the Department of Administrative Research from back then knew about her, but to Heidegger a footnote about a dead sister probably wasn't worth even reading. "What's the set up?"

Reno ran a hand through his hair, "For some reason she's been handed over to Hojo, and is right now being kept in 65-7… She's the redhead from Avalanche"

Rude considered, it wasn't much to go on. But sometimes that was better. Wait… from Avalanche? Now everything clicked into place. How Reno had reacted to her file, the slight disgust when Rude had suggested that he was attracted to her. How frustrated he was after any encounter with Avalanche Rude now realized was because she wasn't there. All this time, he was just after verification, and now it seemed he had it. "I think the president would help you with that."

"You think?" Reno asked, surprised.

Rude nodded, "We should give him a practical reason too. It will help our case."

Reno agreed. Rufus was certainly coming into his own, but was having a strange dance with morality. Was he doing things right by the people because it was _good_ or because it was _practical_? Or maybe just because it was the opposite of what his father would have done. "She clued me in on something going on in the tower," Reno said, "If we can get enough info together, that should do it."

Rude nodded, then smirked back at his partner "Overtime tonight?"

"Damn right."

*******

When Vincent had awoken sometime in the morning after the Highwind had fled Icicle Inn, he was unhappy to find that they were still unloading people from the village. Apparently the others had seen to making more than one stop rather than just dropping them at the northernmost village on the western continent.

In a manner most unlike himself, Vincent voiced his displeasure in no uncertain terms. "If we are not moving to get her in three days-"

"Don't worry," Tifa quickly placated, "Cait's already making the final arrangements. We're doing this while he takes the time he needs to get everything in place."

"Speaking of," Cloud said, hoping to head of any immediate response from the gunman. "We need you to make a call, right?"

Vincent's eyes narrowed. He was not ignorant of what they were trying to do. Now that he had gotten some rest, he could see that they had been _managing_ him for days now. The former Turk did not know how angry he should be about that. "Very well," he said finally. "I will see to scheduling our ride."

*******

"Hey boss, got a minute?" His words were the same, but the redhead's tone and body language spoke of something more serious. It also looked like Reno hadn't slept. To be fair, his clothes usually looked like that, but not his face.

Rufus looked up at the two suited men, "At the moment a 'minute' is one of the few things that I _do not_ have. Be quick." Like several of his underlings Rufus had started burning the candle at both ends. He tried to keep actual work to within normal office hours, but in the evenings he was slogging through the information on the Jenova Project and Sephiroth, hoping to gain his own insight into their enemy. He was not happy that most of his information was decades old, at least Elena had done a good job scanning and categorizing the records from under Nibelheim. He was certain that Hojo's notes were intentionally obtuse, and his desk now contained a scientific dictionary, he was loathe to admit that much of it was beyond what his education allowed him to understand. The initial notes from Dr. Crescent had been useful and more understandable… until her second trimester. Right now Rufus ended most nights with a headache.

Rude gave his partner a look that clearly said he opened with the wrong greeting. "We have new information Mr. President, highly sensitive, that we feel only you should hear."

The blonde man raised a brow and studied the two men before him. They didn't bring Elena in for this, and it was a rare thing that the Turks had information sensitive enough that they asked for such privacy and important enough that they needed to interrupt his day. Weeks ago, this undoubtedly would have gone through Tseng first. But without his leadership Rufus was the only person above them that they trusted, which was as it should have been. "Very well." He waved them forward and called his secretary to not interrupt him until the Turks left his office. "Continue."

Rude was the one to start, "We have reason to believe that Jenova cells are being injected into ShinRa employees within the tower, including Hojo himself."

Rufus narrowed his eyes. This was alarming, but hysterics did no one any good. "Your source is...?"

Standing stiffer than normal, which was saying something, the bald man opened his mouth again, "A woman Scarlet retrieved for Hojo last week."

Again, up went a blonde brow. "A test subject?" he drawled. Rufus didn't show that he spotted it, but he was surprised to actually see Reno's eyes narrow and fists tighten. It was almost like he could see him bite his tongue. He turned his gaze to the redhead. "How would she know?"

"Not exactly sure how, sir," Reno said, with a carefully level tone. He actually said 'sir,' he was serious… and pissed off if Rufus hadn't missed the signs. "Somehow Hojo's… treatments on her made her able to sense them. She says it's most of the Science department and at least one of the guards for the executive prison level where she is currently being held."

"How does she know what Jenova 'feels like?'" Rufus pressed. "How do we know this is not just some mental disruption caused by said treatment?"

Rude spoke up said, pulling the president's scrutinizing gaze from Reno, "She's a member of Avalanche. She's been in the presence of the real thing."

"We captured a member of Avalanche and I was not immediately informed?" The blonde was extremely displeased at this oversight.

"I think Elena performed the pick-up sir." Rude shook his head slightly in disappointment, "She did a by-the-book report. I'm sure it is in your email somewhere."

_One assignment,_ Rufus thought as Rude gave him a sum up of the retrieval mission. He had allowed Elena to take one assignment from Heidegger and as the Head of Public Safety didn't see fit to informing him that they had caught a member of a wanted terrorist organization. He closed his eyes, he would think about what kind of consequence that warranted later.

Rufus pushed himself to lean back in his chair, one hand drumming on the desk. The fact that Scarlet delivered the prisoner to Hojo would have seemed strange at the time. But if the professor was spreading Jenova cells, Scarlet's defection made more sense. Hojo had been the one to treat her after her injury in their encounter with Sephiroth in the crater. "Do you have anything other than her word to go on?"

"Before the Weapon attack on Junon, Reno and I noticed odd behavior in some of the staff. Cliques forming from people who never really met. After Reno came to me with his suspicions we took the time last night to cross reference those individuals with the emails that the Science department sent out for a new vaccine test. Those who accepted, fit our list.

For several seconds Rufus gazed hard at each of them, he had seen the email of course. It had technically come from the Medical department, but Rufus trusted so few people and knew where to look in the fine print. Corporate policy dictated anything to do with the Science Department had to be labeled as such… no matter how small that was. He focused on Reno again. The man was a barely contained ball of anger and impatience. He'd known the man since before they were teens and had only once ever seen him in a condition remotely close to this once. He hadn't known what had happened then, but this time he had the power to get answers. "As much as I would love a reason to get rid of Hojo, we unfortunately need him at this juncture. His work right now is too important."

"But Sir!" Rude said sharply, almost to get Reno's attention as much as Rufus'. If the blonde wasn't mistaken Reno was a hair away from leaping across the desk.

"That doesn't mean we won't act," he said sternly. "But first I need to know _why should we trust her_?" There, Reno's posture gained a little bit of nervousness. "She's a member of Avalanche as you said, this could just be a ruse in some idiotic attempt to escape." He stood up, placed his knuckles on his desk and leaned forward. He stared straight into Reno's blue eyes. "What could she have possibly said to _you_, of all people, that would make you _trust her_?"

Conviction bloomed in Reno and he straightened up, "She didn't have to say anything, sir. She's my sister."

There was a slow look of confusion that crossed Rufus' face, then one of doubt. "Reno… you don't have a sister."

He shook his head, "ShinRa told me she died shortly after I signed up, when I was still in the Staff Recruitment Program. The original reason I joined was because she went missing when we were in the slums. Once I thought she was dead, I didn't have reason to go anywhere else."

Rufus looked at Rude, who nodded. It did seem like something certain people in the company would have done. Especially the ones who had run the Department of Administrative Research at the time. Rufus had never had a sibling or a normal family unit, but he had seen how attached some of them could be.

"I am loathe to tip our hand at this moment if Hojo is working on something against us," Rufus said. "Obviously you will need to be discreet."

"What about my sister?" Reno asked, clearly itching to harm the man.

"I can only imagine how you feel Reno, but I still need _proof_ before we can act. Sister or no, she could still be mistaken." As Rufus said those words, he had never seen Reno look so frustrated.

"Is there a way we can use her, sir?" This was from Rude, which was not surprising. He was trying to give Rufus a logical reason to protect her. "She can sense those who have been... infected."

Rufus considered the time, he hadn't even finished his first cup of coffee when they had come in. Now they brought up more pressing matters, like needing to stop the distribution of the "vaccine."

The blonde sighed. "Don't you have some interrogation tactic that requires isolation and no contact for hours leading up to questioning?" In training on how to be a hostage as a child, Rufus had been told about these things. "She's a member of Avalanche, you have my permission to order the guards to not let anyone remove her from the cell, including Hojo. Use my authority if necessary, even if it means I have to sign another damned form." He looked at Reno again, "In addition to setting the stage for us to remove her later, that should buy you the peace of mind you need to get your work done. Report to me what findings you have at 2 o'clock. From there we shall plan accordingly."

As the redhead visibly relaxed, he turned to the man's partner. "Rude, I need an analysis of the vaccine… actually no. If you can get me an image of it at least 400 times magnification I will know." Gaea knew that by now he knew what the thrice damned cells looked like. "and Reno," The man looked back up at his name. "Get some sleep"

*******

All Ralena knew about the passage of time between when she reunited with her brother and when his bald partner came to retrieve her was that she slept. The dull restless sleep that one gets when they are sore and sick, that kind leaves a person wondering if they had slept at all. She vaguely remembered waking up in the lab at one point. Fortunately Hojo deemed her condition to be unfit for another Mako treatment yet. This meant that he just got one of his assistants to take the usual readings and samples, so she just let herself drift back off again as it was not worth the effort of fighting the sedative they had given her this time.

The bald man escorted her out into the hall and into a nearby conference room where her brother was waiting. Once the door closed, he gave her a quick hug, then wrapped a zip up hoodie around her shoulders. "The boss wants us to keep things quite about you," he said apologetically. Then he smirked as he grabbed the hood and pulled it over her head, covering her red hair.

She returned a tired smile, "Thanks, big brother…"

"Heh, you say that like I had a choice. Why are you calling me 'big brother' anyway? It's not like we're kids or anything."

Her chest clenched and she opened her mouth then looked away. "Sorry, it's just…"

"What?"

She swallowed, "Mako treatments really mess with your head, you know? I um… " she trailed off, obviously embarrassed.

"You what?"

She looked up at him, her vision still filled with faint projections of other's memories. "I don't remember your name."

"oh."

There were several seconds of awkward silence while the siblings avoided looking at each other. After which, the bald Turk cleared his throat. "His name is Reno."

"Dammit, I was getting to that!" Reno squawked back. Ralena let out a soft laugh. It hurt a little, but that was alright. Her brother just shook his head and escorted her to the door. "Come on, you've got a meeting with the boss."

She nodded back and tugged the sweater closed with her hands on the inside. "Lead the way… Reno."

*******

"You should sit down," Reno said to the woman as they got in front of Rufus' desk.

"I'm fine," she said attempting to wave him off, and swaying slightly with the effort. Rufus noted that she looked pale, and more frail then when he had first seen her months ago in Rocket Town.

"What's wrong with her?" Rufus asked.

"_She_," the woman said with a bit of annoyance, scratching at her upper arm, "Is still recovering from a Mako bath is all, I'll be fine."

"How long were you in there?" Reno asked her.

She shrugged, "Hojo has put me under so much I don't even know how many _days_ I've been here. When I got to walk on my own I didn't pass windows either. All I can say is that it was a different set of guards between when I went in and came back last."

"Sit. Down." Reno commanded, in the paternal tone that he usually reserved for junior Turks.

"Fine," she muttered, slightly cowed, before sitting in the seat. Normally Rufus wouldn't have allowed for such a thing, he had control over who was allowed to sit before him. But given that she looked dead on her feet, and Reno's attitude towards her, Rufus wasn't going to comment.

Besides the art of diplomacy required a certain level of civility. "Reno says you can sense Jenova cells, I need you to prove it."

"How do you want me to do that?" She asked, scratching at the side of her neck.

Rufus gestured to two tall, sealed glass bottles on his desk. "Pick a drink."

"Boss, you can't seriously-"

"It's fine," she interrupted, "Will this keep me out of the lab?"

Rufus nodded. Reno moved beside her as she leaned forward and picked up one of the two seemingly identical glass cylinders, her eyes glowing green. Then the other. "Reno, I know you are worried, but could you back up?" After another several seconds with each, "The concentration's not high, but they both seem to have Jenova cells in them. That one has more." She put them down and scratched at her arm again.

"Very good," Rufus said, "Does it always take you so long to determine?"

Slowly, she shook her head, her nails rubbing against the side of her neck again. "I'm still lethargic."

"What do you keep scratching at?" Rufus finally asked, it was getting on his nerves.

"The sensors," She said casually.

His brow raised, "The what?"

"Hojo put subcutaneous sensors in me first thing after I was handed over to him," she said blandly, "They itch."

Rufus' eyes widened slightly at her casual manner, but Reno beat him to the next question.

"That fucker put shit _under your skin_, and you're reacting to it like it's a goddamn bug bite!?" The older redhead said, staring at his sister in shock.

She looked at him flatly, expression suddenly devoid of emotion, "The closer he can monitor my vitals the better the data."

"This won't do," Rufus said. He paged his secretary and asked her to call Elena up to his office. "When we are done here, Reno, I want you and Elena to take her down to medical, someone you trust if available, and get those sensors removed. I can’t risk Hojo being able to track her with those."

She looked at Reno, and gestured to his weapon. "Shock me." All three men looked at her with surprised expressions.

Rufus had never seen the Turk look more horrified. "WHAT!?" Reno exclaimed.

"It'll short out the sensors," she stated, "Then you can justify removing them. Easy enough to claim I tried to escape or something. You can adjust it right?"

"I am not going to shock you," Reno said seriously.

"I can take it, trust me."

"No way! "

"Then have your partner do it, or give it to me."

"What the hell is wrong with you? Are you insane?"

"Some people think so," she said plainly, "Do you know what he did to me?" Rufus noticed she had a strangely even tone, one he had long ago learned was used when one was trying very hard to keep any emotion from entering their voice.

"No, I don't know. Because you won't tell me!"

"If I did, you'd jump the gun and rightfully kill the bastard."

"Damn right I wo- Why the _fuck_ are you laughing, Rude!?"

The bald man managed to still his shaking shoulders and looked at the two redheads. "This is exactly what I pictured you having a sibling would be like."

*******

When Elena had been called into Rufus' office to see the redhead she had picked up last week she was surprised. She was even more shocked to find that she and Reno would be taking her down to medical while the president gave additional orders to Rude.

When they arrived at the clinic on the 50th floor, Reno wasted no time in calling for Dr. Belden and insisting that they get the patient in an exam room without having to wait. Getting in the room was not a problem, but they were told that they had to wait for the doctor. While they waited Reno fretted over the captive, looking at the angry red marks on her skin.

Elena knew that they were keeping her in the dark as to why this woman was becoming an asset. She couldn't blame them, she had a bad habit of spouting out sensitive information. As she watched the two, the blonde quickly realized the relation between the two. It was no longer a mystery to her why this particular person was now under the Turk's care.

After about ten minutes in the room the doctor came in. She was a kind looking woman with light brown hair, even so, she greeted them with a slight look of irritation directed at Reno. Before turning to the patient, "I'm Dr. Belden, what's your name?"

The woman looked instantly distrustful of the doctor and green eyes looked her up and down. "Doctors have always called me Red III."

Dr. Belden blinked in surprise. "Her name is Ralena," Reno spoke up.

"Would you like to know my vitals?"

The doctor answered in the affirmative as she got out her stethoscope, but was surprised again when the prisoner spit out her vital statistics as of her capture. Height, weight, temperature, blood pressure, and Mako levels. It sounded routine, as natural as a soldier introducing themselves with full rank and unit number.

Still, Dr. Belden went about her normal routine, and checked her vitals on her own. When the doctor explained the monitor that clipped over her finger and was wired to another that wrapped around her wrist, would take her pulse and check her oxygen and Mako levels, the woman seemed confused. When prompted she asked why the doctor was not taking blood or using a more intrusive device for the same purpose.

"That takes longer and is more invasive than is necessary." The doctor blanched as she looked at the numbers on the wrist monitor. "How are you conscious with Mako levels this high!?"

"Experience."

The doctor looked back at Reno, who was starting to look angry. "… If it's alright," she asked the patient carefully, "I'd like to take a blood sample for a few tests."

The prisoner cocked her head, confused again, "'If it's alright?'" she echoed.

The doctor cast a challenging look at the two Turks. "She used to be _in_ the Science Department," Reno said carefully, "Can you just remove the sensors in her?"

"I'm sorry… what?" Dr. Belden asked in horror.

"She's got some broken shit in her skin that needs to be taken out," Reno said.

"I intentionally exposed myself to an electric shock in order to short-out the subcutaneous sensors that were implanted in me. Now that they no longer function they should be removed to prevent future complications." Three sets of eyes stared at the patient's very formal response.

After several seconds, the doctor carefully asked, "How many?"

The redheaded woman answered at least thirty, but she couldn't see how many were on her back, so her count could be off. When it came time for the prisoner to strip for the procedure, Reno went to wait out in the hall. That was probably the real reason Elena was here. Concern for the prisoner's modesty was interesting, even if she didn't seem to care. She could only guess that Reno was averse to seeing his sister in such as state. Elena did not get it, but she had only had a sister.

Elena watched as Dr. Belden muttered darkly about how the sensors must have been sealed in with healing magic. She had asked her patient if she wanted to be put under for the procedure. The response was an emphatic "no," stating that she had been forced asleep often enough lately, and she still likely had sedative in her system. So the procedure continued with only a local anesthetic.

The incisions were made as small as possible, and the devices removed with tweezers. The woman barely winced as the first pieces were pulled out. They were about an inch long, a quarter inch wide and flat, perhaps the thickness of a business card.

If Elena was going to be sick, she was at least in the right place.

"What about this?" The doctor asked when she undid the bandages on the woman's forearms to get to the sensors. There was a partially healed wound on the left arm, a straight line of a cut about an inch and a half long. The right arm looked like it had a partially healed burn on it. Elena knew they must have been magically treated to some degree. The woman had neither of those wounds when she and Kunsel brought her in and anything gained since then should not be that healed.

"From testing," the patient said mechanically. Elena noted that the woman's eyes were now a comparatively dull hazel, not the blazing Mako green she had seen in their fight.

"What kind of testing?" the doctor asked, a gentle maternal tone added to her voice this time.

The woman's body tensed oddly and worry crease her features. "Why don't you want to say?" Elena asked.

The woman bit her lip, "If this one says, Reno will get mad."

"I have news for you," Elena said, "He already is."

She shook her head slightly, "This one doesn't want him to be mad. This on-" she closed her eyes and swallowed, "_I_ think he would do something stupid." Elena had found that interesting too, since the doctor entered the room her speech pattern and behavior had become very formal. Now that Reno was absent, her tone had gone from tired and formal to mechanical and lifeless. Elena remembered that the patient must have been a former subject of Hojo's. Clearly, the woman didn't know how normal doctors behaved.

Dr. Belden met Elena's eye, then turned back to her patient, "I think it's better if we know, how about we promise not to tell him? Just about this."

"The only promises the ShinRa keeps are secrets," she muttered, as if quoting a dream, before thinking a second and nodding.

Elena stiffened at the comment, it was a phrase she had not heard in a long time. It was an old Turk saying, one that became an urban legend like motto, built into conspiracy theories and propaganda.

"Uhhh… ok," the doctor said, clearly unfamiliar with the phrase. "What is this from then?"

"The Doct- Hojo needed a new baseline tests for this one. Many of the old tests were performed again upon my arrival, before Mako treatments began."

"… and which test is this from?"

Ralena swallowed and looked at the other two women. Despite how normal she interpreted other aspects of life in the lab, she knew this one made people angry. Nobody ever reacted well to the next three words. Despite the pained shape of her mouth, the words came out emotionlessly, "Pain tolerance testing."

Green eyes lit up as a combination of shock, pity and outrage burst out from the other two in the room. She didn't understand why they cared, especially the doctor. They were not her friends. They were not her neighbors. They barely knew her name and they held pity and sympathy for her. This did not reflect the experience she had with ShinRa doctors, even if she knew that people outside of the Science Department were supposed to be different.

"He. Did. What?" The older woman asked darkly.

Despite the pity that she knew the woman had for her, Ralena couldn’t help but shrink in herself a little bit. Disappointing someone in a white coat had never ended well for her in the past. Still, she found herself answering reflexively. "There are various tests this one would undergo periodically to measure my progress both physically and mentally. Pain tolerance testing is among them."

"How did he measure your tolerance?" The doctor asked horrified, unable to stop herself.

Elena noted that the patient's voice and demeanor had become fully robotic now. Her arms went limp at her sides like a doll's and her tone became lifeless. "Negative stimulus is applied at increasing levels of discomfort until this one screams and continues until this one loses consciousness. Both data points are recorded."

The medic looked at the wound in her arm again, "He had it healed some…" she observed, as if surprised at the act of mercy.

"The muscle damage could have been permanent left to heal normally. The Doctor does not want this one to sustain permanent damage. In addition, other treatments cannot be conducted while such injuries are fresh."

"Right," the doctor said, deciding that concern for her patient should override her anger. "How about just I re-dress these for now?" The patient merely nodded and the doctor continued with the procedure in relative silence after that.

The petite Turk watched the number of small burnt out devices grow on the tray, some of which had been along both sides of the woman's spine. She couldn't help but think how glad she was that Rufus decided to take her away from Hojo. If this was the first thing Hojo had done when he got her, what else had happened? Tseng's voice rang in her mind.

"_It’s a rare mission that makes you feel good for something other than accomplishment."_

After the woman had put the scrubs back on, Elena opened the door to let Reno back in. "How many?" He asked, eyes glancing as the metal tray.

"Forty," Dr. Belden said with some disgust.

Reno walked over to the... prisoner wasn't the right word anymore, _asset_, looking her over. He probably hadn't noticed the implants in her temples and on her neck before, but the small bandages over the removal incisions made the previous locations obvious.

She tiredly waved him off, citing soreness. Her transformation from an abused robot to a person who simply looked tired was remarkable. Elena could not tell if it was an act or if just being in the presence of her brother made that much of a difference.

"In addition to antibiotic for the incisions, I'm going to give her some medicine to help flush the Mako from her system," the doctor said, fishing a bottle of pills out of a locked cabinet. "You'll need to drink plenty of fluids, and ease into solid foods." The doctor further explained the instructions to her and the asset looked back at her, confused. "Do you not understand?"

The woman looked back at the bottle in her hand. "This is it?"

"What do you mean?"

"No transfusion or injection or marrow samples?"

"No," she said firmly. "I am a _medical_ doctor. I want you to get better the right way _and_ cause as little additional trauma while I'm at it."

Elena didn’t miss the dark look steal over Reno's face. She was pretty sure that he would not need much more motivation in order to do "something stupid."

*******

The doctor had insisted they take Ralena out in a wheelchair, which led to them using a maintenance elevator and the back halls in order to avoid attracting attention. Reno was glad for the suggestion, it seemed his sister was a stubborn one when it came to being self-sufficient and had every intention of stumbling out of the clinic with all of her fresh new incisions throbbing.

Once they got back to the Turk's wing, Reno was a flurry of fraternal action. The two Turks escorted their new charge into their residential lounge. He quickly escorted her to the recliner and rushed off to get her a blanket and pillow. After returning with that he dragged a startled Elena to the kitchen and had her deliver a glass of water while he got a can of soup heating.

After he set her up with food and asked her for the third time if she needed anything else. Ralena insisted now that she was sitting down and eating she was fine. She just wanted to move as little as possible for a while and try to get some honest sleep.

"Are you sure that's all?" Reno asked, "the doc was surprised you were even conscious, never mind talking coherently."

"I'm just tired…" she insisted. "I'll be better with a good rest." She looked at him with reluctant hope, "I could take care of my injuries if I can get my Cure materia back."

Reno was not happy about it, but he shook his head, "The doc thinks you need some natural healing time, and should you really be casting spells right now?"

"tch, I guess you're right," she replied. Once he was certain that she would be okay for at least five minutes, Reno ushered Elena out into their adjoining office area.

Once the door was closed, he turned on Elena, anger evident on his face. "Why didn't you fucking tell us you brought in a member of Avalanche?" he hissed. He wouldn't blame her for doing the mission, that was her job. But that was an important detail that she did not share with her fellow Turks.

"Heidegger knew about it," Elena said defensively, "I sent him the report and I cc'd the president"

"Heidegger is an _idiot_," the red head growled, "and both of them are fucking busy. Heidegger probably just saw 'mission successful' and stopped there, and the boss probably hasn't even seen it yet!"

"But Heidegger's our boss…" she replied lamely

"He is our direct report _on paper_. _Rufus_ is our boss."

"Why didn't you tell me?"

Reno slapped a hand over his face, "For fuck's sake, Elena! You're a Turk! The fact that I call Rufus 'Boss' and I call that green suited jackass 'Heidegger' should be a goddamn clue. Besides, who's been giving you your assignments recently? It's not Heidegger."

"What good would it have done if I would have told the President, anyway?"

"Maybe my sister wouldn't have been in that nutjob's hands for eight days for a start."

"Do you know that for sure? No one else knew she was your sister then. Would he have told you? AND If she hadn't been in the lab then we wouldn’t know about the Jenova infected."

Dammit, she had a point.

Reno sighed, but his agitation was not gone, nor did she expect it to dissipate so easily. "Well in the future run all reports by me or Rude. If we think the boss needs to know, we'll tell you why so you can learn."

"Yes, sir."

"Ok, call the boss and find out when he wants to see her again."

Elena nodded.

"So… who you gonna call?"

"The president."

"Good girl," he said, reaching into his office to grab his lap top before going back into the lounge where his sister was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here's the first of another two chapters that was originally going to be one. Inflation is real. (total chapters added so far = 8)


	35. Office Space

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Conference Call; Screening; Strange News; Empty spaces; Visiting Hours; Spirit of Turks Past; The Set Up

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> That moment when you realized you wrote at least 4 scenes where every character's name starts with an "R"...

Vincent was less than pleased when he found himself in a conference room with his old self and the Others again. As before Ulster and Talos flanked the Turk and Slasher lurked in a corner. "I don't have time for this," he growled.

"We're _sleeping,_ of course we have time."

"Hojo still has her, this is no time for sleeping." The tv screen on the wall behind the Turk came on, showing an image of Ralena in white scrubs strapped down to a table with Hojo leaning over her, a scalpe-

Talos's fist came out and smashed the screen. None of the others moved as sparks and shards of plastic showered the room.

"Wild speculation doesn't do us any good... and it keeps us from getting the rest we need."

Vincent narrowed his eyes at his other self. Clearly his inner Turk wasn't the only one who thought so. He did not remembered going to sleep. In fact, now that he thought about it, he was fairly certain a certain Shinobi snuck up on him with a _Sleep_ spell.

"If I need to rest so badly then why are you _disrupting_ it with your chatter?"

The Turk raised a brow, "My, aren't we moody?"

"_Hello_?"

Every entity in the room looked at the speaker phone in the middle of the once empty table, at the voice. Even his Turk-self looked surprised. "Aerith?"

"_Oh good, I made it through_," her voice said, littered with static. "_It is spreading through Midgar._"

"What is?"

"_Taken from the hands of the warlock, they have made her a hound to smell out the infection._"

"Can you clarify that?"

"_Sorry, Chaos takes my words… his n-ture warps them, a game of tele-hone… Lifestrea-… hard to… comm--icate_."

He had a suspicion, "Has it really been you I've been seeing?"

"_Oh… you remembered?_"

"After years of practice, we're a lucid dreamer," The Turk version of him said.

"_Tha_-" there was a second of static, "_Sorry_."

It seemed the more straightforward the Cetra tried to be, the more static came through. "Tell me what you can."

"_Pitch black intent peppers the shadows of the empire. Sickness to bind ones to the Scion of Calamity. They need her to find the rats chewing holes in the ship. The hidden soldiers. The man who would be a god prepares to move._"

Her voice was mixed with others as she spoke, a chorus of whispers backing her.

"What about the Weapons? Can they do anything?"

"_The Wea--ns are blind wrecking balls, the mother needs a force with eagle eyes. But her sta-ker is loc--ed within th- g---en. The fountains of power are more of a beacon to the Weapons than insidious infection within the metal nest._"

"What was that part about?"

"_Too ob-ious,_" there was a sigh, "_It is not where the mother can reach. It is weak from being as----p too long._"

Vincent opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, he ran the details of Aerith's words through his brain. Committing as much of it to memory as possible. As he attempted to dissect the meaning of it he felt a bit of his tension ease away. Still, he tempered his hope. He felt it was really Aerith, but that feeling wasn't enough to stop him for worrying. Ralena was still deep inside the "metal nest."

*******

"That’s all I have for now," Reeve concluded at the end of his morning report to Rufus. He had, of course noticed the woman sitting in the lounge area some twenty feet away, she had her back to the desk and Rufus didn't mention her, so he had said nothing.

"With Scarlet's... defection," Rufus started distastefully, "I need you to put together your own team to review the plans for the Sister Ray. I want to make sure it's not a bomb or something. Put together a team we can trust, engineers from any department that you think have the right skill set. I want it thoroughly checked before we seriously consider using it."

"Then shouldn't we pause in construction?"

Rufus sat back and brought a hand to his chin in thought. Reeve noted the difference the burden of actually ruling things was having on him. "I'll give you 24 hours to review and adjust the plans, before construction resumes. I expect your team to continue the review afterward as well. Our reasons for moving the Sister Ray are still relevant."

Reeve sighed, it was demands like this gave him the dark circles under his eyes. If Ralena had known who he was, she probably would have understood why Cait Sith spent so much time on auto-follow or offline. "Then I had best get to it."

"This takes top priority," Rufus said, "If you need me to run interference on any other projects I can."

"Thank you, sir."

"One other thing before you go." Rufus gestured to the lounge area and spoke loud enough for the woman to hear. Why don't you come meet Mr. Tuesti, Miss Walker?"

_Walker? _

She stood, some stiffness and fatigue to her manner. She turned and Reeve straightened at the sight of her face, he knew it well, even if he had mostly seen it on a screen. Mako green eyes were set in a slightly sour expression under a brown wig, which would have been convincing if he hadn't known her. He could tell she was uncomfortable in the light grey suit and her face was a little more pale than usual. The suit was mostly unremarkable, but there were a few minor details in it that Reeve knew marked it as one reserved for Turks when they didn't want to be as easily recognized. He swallowed hard, she probably knew he wasn’t responsible for getting sent to Hojo, but her warning from before rang through his mind. He didn't want to say anything, but he also wanted to tell her how happy he was to see her here and not in the lab.

She gave him a curious expression, but turned back to Rufus when she stepped up beside him. "I really don't see why this is necessary," She said, "How many more people do you expect me to meet?"

"As many as I deem necessary," Rufus said in a tone of disapproving command, "Or would you prefer to return to your previous accommodations?"

She sighed and turned to shake Reeve's hand. "Walker," she said, before cautiously continuing, "… Probationary asset."

Reeve tried to act normal and smirked, "Reeve Tuesti, Director of Urban Development."

"She'll be around for a bit," Rufus said. "I'll be sending her and Rude down to check on the team you have reviewing the plans to work on the mako cannon." Reeve noted the surprised look on her face, as if this was the first she had heard of it too.

"Why is that? Don't you trust my judgement?"

Blue eyes narrowed at him, "In ability, yes. You're judgement in _people_, however, is suspect."

From a ShinRa standpoint, that was true. Reeve's gaze slid back over to Ralena, did Rufus know what she was capable of? Was this a test for both of them? Either way, his gamble had worked, and now he had something to worth reporting.

***

Reeve's interview marked the fourth time they had gone through this routine. Rufus set it up the same way each time. Reno's sister was to sit where she could hear a standard update, which implied a level of trust with her. Then he called her over casually for an introduction. Rufus had decided that she should appear as though he had coerced her into being here. Which was somewhat true. Aside from Tuesti, the only other interview of note was the head of the Medical Department. After she gave no indication that he was infected, Rufus hinted to him that he should double check his quarantine procedures on his way out.

She flopped down into one of the chairs in front of Rufus' desk, tugging at the collar of her shirt. " I feel like I'm wearing the other team's colors..," she muttered.

As a person groomed to lead and manipulate, Rufus had his own observations about the woman. He had noticed something interesting about her. Reno always had a go with the flow kind of attitude, which was a wrapping atop his loyalty and dedication to the job. His sister had similar outward behavior, but to him it seemed this covered, not loyalty, but an ingrained obedience. As long as it was within reason, he was certain that if he told her to do anything, she would shrug or sigh dramatically, and then do it without a fight. It was true that Rufus had most of the cards in this situation, but he was fairly certain he did not need to use them.

After the first meet, he had criticized her performance, and noticed that she cowed slightly. When scolded she expected punishment. This was a problem for Rufus. Since she had been a subject of Hojo's, Rufus doubted that there was any threat he could follow through on that Reno wouldn't kill him for. He was also certain that the Turk would not take kindly to using threats against her, even empty ones.

This meant he had to lead her with the carrot, rather than the stick. A tactic that he had little experience with until recently.

"Well?" Rufus asked.

"He's clean," She said, far more casually than she had been acting a minute before. Her manner made it all the more evident that she was Reno's sister. When he had seen them side by side earlier it seemed so obvious, nose, cheekbones, similar jawline.

"As I suspected," he replied, "Tuesti is too smart to volunteer himself for anything remotely related to Hojo." Rufus could see she was still feeling the effects of her last visit with Hojo and right now she seemed to become fatigued easily. She would have to endure. They had an unknown timeline, so he wanted as much information as quickly as possible. It wasn't even lunch time yet and she would have more to do before the day was out. He noted the thoughtful expression on her face, "Was there something about him that bothered you?"

"I think I saw him in the hallway the other day. Why would he be… afraid of me?"

"Afraid?" Rufus asked. She had good intuition if she picked that up, he wondered if it was genetic.

"When he saw my face, he looked surprised and a little… afraid?"

"Reeve keeps himself informed," he replied casually. "He probably recognized you from the reports on Avalanche." Rufus didn’t smile like he wanted too. Of course he knew of Reeve's role as a spy in Avalanche and was greatly amused by the exchange. It was strange, at this point Reeve was effectively both a double agent and a liaison. Even more strange was the fact that nearly everyone knew it. "He might have also heard about your showing in the Training Room. It's not often that people break it."

She narrowed her green eyes slightly at him. Somehow, he had given something away, but it was clear she did not know what it meant.

"This afternoon I'll have Rude take you down to observe the team Reeve put together. Signal to Rude if any of them are infected and we will have them pulled from the task."

"That makes sense…" she said haltingly, as if she did not expect him to have a viable plan.

Rufus raised a brow at her, "Is there something else?"

"When can I have my stuff back?" she asked, "I mean, how many people do I have to press hands with?" She wasn't being figurative, if the concentrations on Jenova cells in a person were low, skin to skin contact was the best way for her to be sure. Hence the introductions and hand-shakes to nearly all of his department heads this morning.

"Make no mistake, I still consider you a hostile prisoner"

She let out a small laugh, "At least that sounds more honest than 'Probationary Asset'" After another moment she asked, "Will I be meeting any SOLDIERs?"

"That seems pointless, given that they all have Jenova cells already."

"Yes, but… well they might be different."

"Explain."

"I think Cloud feels different than the ones I saw on the beach, but I didn't get a good read on them since I was busy fighting. I know his process was different than an actual SOLDIER. The sense I got from Hojo seemed different too."

Hmmm… so they knew about Strife too, probably not to the detail that Rufus did. "Do you really think you could tell the difference?"

Ralena shrugged, "Maybe. Sensing through a person would probably be like someone switching the brand of coffee used in a Frappuccino." Rufus grinned inwardly. She just implied that she could sense more than Jenova cells otherwise there would be no interference.

Rufus reached into his desk and pulled out one of the jars he had initially tested her with, then a smaller vial, one that would be used to fill a needle from. Rufus had Rude go into the medical department and replace the latest batch of "vaccines" from the Science department with a placebo. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough fakes made to replace all of them yet. "See if you can tell if these are different."

She reached forward, eyes glowing. He pretended to go to reading his emails, but watched her study the two containers, closing her eyes, and switching between them. She was taking her time, like a wine tasting. "There's a difference," she said eventually, with a measure of disappointment. "But… it's subtle."

"Then we'll save a walkthrough of the SOLDIER floor for later. After you screen Reeve's team today, Scarlet's department is the next highest priority since she might have encouraged the spread among her people. After that Public Safety then medical." He was not going to risk sending her to the Science Department. While he knew that compatibility was required, he decided it was best to assume that all of those in the tower were lost. "Go back to the couch," he said, "Your next introduction should be here in about five minutes."

She clicked her tongue at the back of her teeth, the same as Reno, and sighed "Tch, fine…"

*******

"Heeey… Vincent?" a hesitant voice called from beside him. For once, he actually found the man in the mess, sitting alone and looking into a coffee cup, that still looked full.

The gunman didn't move, but his eyes turned to the toy cat in the doorway. He waited for it to speak.

"I have some… strange news about Ralena."

He raised a brow. When the cat didn't continue, he sighed and prompted him. "Go on…"

"I saw her in Rufus' office about an hour ago, it looks like she's been… recruited."

Vincent was confused and cautiously relieved. This tracked with what Aerith told him, which gave more evidence that it really was the Cetra that he spoke to. "Why?"

"I don't know, she doesn't know I'm Cait Sith’s operator, and I wasn't about to have that conversation in front of Rufus. She didn't seem happy about it, but when Rufus said she could go back to where he found her, she seemed to cooperate more."

Crimson eyes narrowed, "And where was that?"

"I'm guessing he took her from Hojo, I hear he threw a fit early this morning. That must be when he found out."

Vincent sat back, thoughtfully. Were he not so worried, he could almost find humor in the image of Hojo throwing a tantrum like a child, "Why would they take her now?"

Cait Sith shuffled his feet, "I might have pointed the Turks towards her… I decided it was better than letting her stay under Hojo."

Vincent nodded, a slit bit of tension leaving his frame. "Can you talk to her?"

Cait Sith looked hesitant, "I'm not sure I'll be able to go see her in person..."

The glare he received was frightening. "I want to know what is going on."

Cait Sith noticed the verbal slip, it was the first time Vincent had said "I" rather than "we." Ge put up his gloved paws in a placating manner. "I'll manage something. I'll need to find out where they are keeping her, or at least an excuse to go see the Turks."

Vincent considered this. In his day, people rarely _wanted_ to see the Turks. He couldn't imagine that their reputation was much different now. "I'll leave you to it then."

*******

She stared at the flickering images of a short haired Vincent working on a typewriter and filling out paperwork, with that or a pen. Sometimes he was cleaning his firearms. Once or twice she caught his grabbing his jacket and walking towards her, heading for the door. The echoes were frequently blocked by the physical barrier in reality.

She was still mentally off balance, between the Mako treatments and the constant pressure of people who were nearby in the tower she was having trouble keeping focus for more than a few minutes at a time. There were more people she could sense than on the Highwind, but much better than being down in the city. Ralena wished Vincent were here, not only did she miss him, she had not realized how much she had grown to depend on him as an anchor. She shut her eyes, she could do this on her own. At the very least she could get to a fully coherent state. She should rest as much as she could.

It wasn't like focusing on anyone available to her was much good anyway. Reno was a chaotic mass of conflicting emotions. For the most part he would cycle through happy, worry, anger, frustration and dutiful. Every time Elena was in her presence the woman just felt pity and guilt, which made the empath feel sorry for herself. Rude was the best candidate, but he was worried and concerned. Rufus himself was a ball of determination, his will tightly containing his worry and stress. Ironically, the best chance she had in the past day to center herself was when Rufus had her go through the department heads. His office was large and isolated enough that while he was listening to the reports she was able to sit in the relative emotional quiet of the lounge area.

Even more ironic, she actually wanted to go back to her old room. Despite all of the awful things that happened in her life while she stayed there, her first real memories of being happy, of having a friend, had been made there. What would she give to see an honest smile on Sephiroth's face again? To see him free of malice and scorn? She only had one photo of him back at the farm. It had been clipped from a magazine of some memorial issue that ShinRa had put out a year after his supposed death. The article had been some fluff propaganda piece used to encourage more men to enlist in SOLDIER.

If only she could be recovered already. If only she could feel useful instead of feeling used. She took a deep breath and looked back into the past again. Soon. A few days at most and she would be fine. It should be alright to indulge herself just a little bit longer…

*******

The woman was standing in front of the locked door to an empty Turk office, staring at it. After about five minutes Elena asked, "What are you doing over there?" a little perturbed at the restless prisoner.

The asset closed her eyes for a second then looked back at the blonde woman. The glow from them faded but they remained green. "Sorry, I was…" she took a moment to choose her words, "I was wondering if this was Vincent's office."

"Valentine?"

The woman nodded.

"I wouldn't know," Elena answered, pushing back the memories of the videos she had seen of the man in Nibelheim's lab. "That was even before Tseng's time… Why that one?"

She smiled mischievously, "Just a hunch… could I go in?"

Elena narrowed her eyes at the redheaded woman. There was almost nothing in there. An empty desk, a book shelf and a pair of chairs. Even if Valentine told her about something he had hidden in there, it had been long enough that it would have been found by now. Renovations and furniture exchanges would have occurred multiple times over the years. "Whyyyy?" she asked.

Ralena blushed and looked away, tucking hair behind her ear. "I guess I just wanted to see it… what it's like."

Suspicion was still alight in the female Turk, despite working with them, Elena felt that she should not be trusted. "Then ask Reno to let you in his office when he gets back."

She frowned, "I bet my brother is way messier than Vincent was."

What was it about that room that she would want to see? "It's empty anyway. I doubt anyone is _that_ clean." The woman turned away from the door and walked back to one of the chairs in the lobby area where Elena was sitting with her laptop. The woman positioned herself so that she could see the door she had just be standing next to. It was as though she just realized she was asking for something weird and decided to give up. That wasn't surprising, she still looked a little 'Mako green' in the face. It didn't take long for a glow to enter her eyes again as stared towards the hall. It made the blonde think of a puppy sitting by the front door waiting for their owner to come home. Elena sighed, "Reno better hurry back with lunch, Rude is scheduled to take you to walk another department in less than an hour."

The woman blinked and looked at her. "Again? What is happening to all of these people I'm flagging anyway?"

Elena shrugged, looking back at her screen, "Right now, nothing."

The redhead was thoughtful for a few seconds, "He needs to know how many people have been affected.."

"Pretty much…" the blonde said, without looking up from her work. There was about a minute of relative silence between the two before Elena sighed again, "I'm sorry…"

The woman turned her green eyes to her, "What?"

"I'm sorry I brought you in, Kunsel is too," Elena said, feeling a little better now that she got the words out. "We didn't know Scarlet had planned on gift wrapping you for Hojo."

A light, tired smile touched her lips, "… thanks"

*******

Ralena was camping out in the Turk's lounge, Rufus had refused to unlock any of the spare rooms for her use, a carrot to dangle in front of her, no doubt. It was near the end of the work day, and she had no other "duties" to perform today, so she was resting until dinner time. Pale echoes of dark suits

Rufus had her meet the Mayor and all of his department heads other than Hojo, only Reese Tuesday (was that his name?) had any reaction to her that implied he recognized her. Why did the head of Urban Development get to see Avalanche reports? After that she had gone to see the team that man had put together under Rude's supervision. The Turks were playing it safe, whenever she was escorted somewhere in the building, Reno wasn't to go with her. Even with a wig, their relation was blatant when they were side by side and they didn't want to draw any more attention to her than was necessary.

"Yo, Ral," Reno said from the doorway to the offices, "there's... someone here to see you."

Curious, she sat up from where she was laying down on the couch, "Is it Rufus?"

"Nnnnooo," Reno stepped aside, as if to let someone step in. She was surprised when the one who entered was so short.

Black cat ears and a crown peeked into the doorway before, followed by the rest of the robotic feline. "Hi Ralena," he waved sheepishly.

She smiled, "Cait Sith?"

"I may as well tell ya," Reno sighed, "I'm gonna have ta report on this conversation."

Ralena shook her head, "May as well have a seat then."

Reno leaned against the back of the nearby armchair. "So… why ain't you here in person?" he asked the robot.

The cat looked sheepishly at the woman in the room, "There's that threat you gave me before…"

"Really?" Ralena said skeptically, "You don't honestly think I thought this was _your_ fault do you?"

"Well… no," he admitted, "But I am a coward."

She let out a soft laugh and shook her head before asking, "How's Iris?"

"Recovered, Yuffie was able to heal her up when they found her. Most of her remaining wounds are superficial."

She let our a sigh of relief, tension that she hadn’t realized she was holding on to left her, "Thank goodness."

"Who's Iris?" Reno asked, confused. Did Cait Sith neglect to mention new Avalanche members?

"My Chocobo." She answered conversationally, "Elena blew us up. I had barriers up, but you might want to talk to her about non-lethal capture methods." Reno scoffed at this, and the woman turned back to the puppet. "How is everyone else doing?"

"Worried, of course," he answered, "Yuffie's been trying to keep up people's spirits but…"

"I can only imagine…" Ralena said flatly. Yuffie's attempts to cheer people didn't usually go over well on a normal day.

"So, what is Rufus using you for?"

"How do you know about that?" she asked. Reno was careful not show any reaction to her question.

"I saw you, of course," Cait Sith grinned, "There's quite the rumor about the 'two suits in sunglasses' walking the floors. No one can decide if it's a good or a bad omen."

She looked at Reno, who shook his head, she frowned. "I guess, you'll have to ask him. But I think I'm safe from Hojo for a while."

"He's going to want to know how long," the cat responded.

"Well you can tell Cloud that I don't know."

CS shook his head, "Wrong one, _he's_ gotten really scary without you around. The way he let loose outside Icicle Inn was terrifying."

"What are you talking about?" Ralena was confused, "What happened?"

"I'll fill you in later," Reno said. "Short version: It was a big fight against Sephiroth's… forces coming out of the crater." There was little reason not to tell her, the people she would want to tell _were there_, after all.

"We were strategizing before it happened, so the fact that it delayed us…"

"The big one got out didn't he?" she concluded.

The cat winced. "I think he _let_ it out and it really let loose. It wrecked the battlefield something fierce."

Reno looked back and forth between them, trying to figure out the pronoun game they were playing. "Are you talking about that black winged summon that was all over the place?"

Cait Sith and Ralena shared a look, then only nodded.

"Considering I already told him Hojo had you for a while, I'm sort of surprised he hasn't come flying over here on his own."

"The damage is done," she said dismissively. There was a spike of concern from her brother at that. "I'm still really tired from my last Mako dip, but that's it. I'm sure I'll be fine." She didn't mention any other soreness she was experiencing, she did not want to worry them more than necessary.

The robotic feline gained a strangely serious expression, "You know it really worries me how casual you are about it." This time when he brought up his concern, he was careful to keep his voice more level. "How many this time?"

"They knocked me out a lot, I'm not nearly as cooperative as I used to be…"

"Give me a guess."

She shrugged, "I'm sure of three, maybe four."

"Wait," Reno said, "Three Mako baths… _since_ Elena brought you in!?" She felt the spike of outrage come off of her brother, and Cait Sith went still in a way that they learned meant his operator had paused control.

"How long since I've been captured anyway?"

"Nine days, I'm sure he could give me hours, if not minutes." Cait Sith noticed the expression of anger flash across the Turk's face. He looked back and forth at them. "I'm glad my guess was right," the cat said.

"Yeah" Reno said, "How did you figure that out anyway?"

"Do you have any idea how much paperwork I slugged through for the Avalanche reports?" Cait Sith sounded both exasperated and proud at the same time.

"Why did you wait so long to tell me about her, anyway?" Reno asked, a dangerous tone to his voice. If it was not for the way Vincent had been the last week it might have scared him more.

Cait Sith ticked off his fingers, "I wasn't sure enough, you weren't in the tower, and between the Turks and Hojo I wasn't sure which was the frying pan or the fire."

Reno clenched a fist, "I swear, I'm goin' ta march over to your office and-."

"Sorry," The robot interrupted "I'm far too busy for you to kick my ass right now."

"Calm down, Reno," Ralena said. "He was just worried about me." She turned to the cat again, "But seriously," the woman continued incredulously, "I'd rather share a bed with a Marlboro than be in the same room as Hojo, you should know that by now Cait Sith."

A cartoonish white glove landed on her hand, "I am sorry I took so long."

"It's okay, really," she assured him. After a moment's pause, "I don't suppose I could talk to him?" she asked hopefully. Reno raised a brow, noticing her anticipation.

The cat shook his head, and she visibly deflated. "They're planning right now, you know they leave me out of that. Besides I've got my hands full with other responsibilities that I can't tell you guys about." Even if Cait Sith _did_ know most of the plan, he could not let Reno suspect it. Plausible deniability was a double edged sword.

"Can you tell him that our shared demon has gone off his rocker and done it to himself."

"Ral…" Reno said in a warning fashion, she was dangerously close to sharing information she wasn't supposed to. The Cat was confused, but Reno was certain that _he_, whoever thar was, would be able to interpret the message. It was a short list and Reno was pretty sure he knew who it was.

"Fine, fine, geeze. Look, just let everyone know that I am safe. The Turks are my guard dogs right now-"

"No need to be insulting," Reno muttered.

"-and what I'm doing shouldn't effect Avalanche directly." She looked up and Reno gave her an expression that what she had said was okay. "Trust me, if you knew what I was doing, you'd be alright with it.

*******

"How is she?" Reeve had barely gotten Cait Sith into the conference room when he was asked. Surprisingly it was Cloud instead of Vincent, which did make for a much less intimidating greeting. He came over immediately after putting away the other unit that he had used to visit Ralena.

"She's well it seems. She's on the 58th floor now, which is less restricted. Bad thing about that is that she's been moved to the _Turk's_ quarters. No one gets in or out of there unless they have a Turk's key card and I _cannot_ replicate that." He tried to spin this into a positive, "Good news is, they are having her walk the floors with Rude. No one seems to know why, and she wasn't allowed to say anything."

Barret folded his arms and looked down at the maps on the table. "They're movin' her around, so we don't hafta get into the Turk's office, but we're not gonna know where she'll be."

"And ShinRa tower is practically a city unto itself…" Tifa sighed.

"Any idea what her schedule is?"

Reeve shook his head and the unit mimicked the action, "We couldn’t tell each other much about, Reno was standing there the whole time. Honestly, "I don't think she knows either."

"The question is 'why?'" Vincent said. "If we knew why they were moving her around, we may be able to narrow down where she could be."

The executive and spy had a few ideas, but nothing concrete yet. "I don't know myself, but she said we'd agree with that she's doing," the robot answered. "She also wanted me to tell Vincent that your 'shared demon has gone off his rocker and done it to himself'."

"Who did what?" Cloud asked, he looked like he thought he should know what that meant.

Cait Sith shrugged.

"Hojo," Vincent whispered, his eyes darting across the floorplans in thought, not really looking at them. "'They've made her a hound'…"

"What do you mean?"

"Hojo must be doing something, spreading it within the ShinRa. She can sense it, so they made her a 'hound' to find the infected."

"So that's why Brooks got removed from the team." Reeve muttered under his breath, low enough that the mic should not have picked it up. He remembered how she and Rude had orbited around the team while they discussed the plans, making everyone nervous. It had been at least fifteen minutes before the stepped aside. Rude instructed the man to go back to his regular duties without explaining anything to the executive. They hung around for a few minutes more, Ralena sitting in the corner of the room, hiding her fatigue, before leaving without a word.

"How did you put that together out of the message?" Tifa asked.

Vincent shook his head, "Through Chaos, Aerith spoke to me in a dream. I wasn't sure it was really her until now. It was like a riddle."

"What else did she say?" Cloud said, leaning forward. Reeve wondered if he envied Vincent's condition, if only so that he could have had a similar experience with their lost friend.

Vincent closed his eyes and thought a moment, "It's a… 'sickness to bind people to Scion of Calamity.'"

"That's Sephiroth, right?" Barret asked.

Cloud nodded, "Then it must be Jenova Cells, we saw Scarlet turn at Icicle Inn."

"Anyone could guess she got infected in the crater," Tifa said, "But if there is more going on…"

Vincent clenched his jaw, "We were fools to not consider what Hojo might do after that."

"It's unlike Hojo to move so quickly, though." Reeve mused aloud, "Normally he would be patient enough to let things mature over _years_. It's barely been a few months."

"She did say he's lost it," Cloud said.

"Which is really saying somethin'," Barret grunted in agreement.

"Does this change our plans?" Tifa asked.

Cloud shook his head, "We're still going to get her. But I'll breathe easier knowing she's not in the lab…"

Vincent crossed his arms, looked at the map then up at the others, "Our method of approach is fine. It only changes what happens when we get to the tower."

*******

Early the next morning, Ralena could be found sleeping on the sofa in the common room of the Turk's apartments in the tower. Well, trying to sleep would be more accurate.

The sofa was better than the ground in a lot of ways, but her body still ached. The painkillers and the low level potion Reno provided her had certainly helped with a lot of it, but her discomfort was enough that she continually woke up and had trouble getting back to sleep.

The suit she wore would fold up and wrinkle under her in unfamiliar ways and she'd eventually just removed the pants. The air around her was full of flitting shadows of Turks, far fewer echoes than what she had seen earlier in the day, but enough to add to the distraction.

A part of her didn't _want_ to sleep either. Since she had been captured, when she went to sleep she almost always woke up in a different place. Half the time the place she woke up was the lab. Her muscles twitched at the thought of the tiny electrical impulses that had stolen her ability to move and she winced at the bit of pain that brought on. Only occasional glances at the clock told her that she must have slept.

She heard an echo of her brother drunkenly saying something fade off and a whole new set of thoughts occupied her mind. Her brother was a Turk. Having known Vincent as well as she did gave her an idea as to the kind of work they did. It also mean that they could not really talk to each other. They both knew if she told him anything, he'd have to tell his boss. So for now they agreed that if it wasn't relevant to the current mission of finding Jenova infected people inside of ShinRa, she didn't have to bring it up. In addition, she only had to answer questions that wouldn't hurt Avalanche… so far. It's not like she knew what they were doing anyway, Avalanche was a very fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants group, she had only had a vague idea of their plans for the next day or so. A period which had already elapsed and things likely would have changed drastically after her capture.

She reflexively moved arm was over her face when she heard the door open and the light came on. "Who are you?" a male voice said.

She peeked out from under her elbow and saw a Wutaian man in a Turk suit with a beauty mark on his forehead. She'd seen his picture in one of the offices, the last leader of the Turks who was supposed to be dead. Great, her inability to sleep was interfering with her senses again. She groaned and rolled to face the back of the couch.

There was a beat of silence, "Answer me." Annoyance and distaste.

She pulled the pillow over her head, muttering , "Stupid visions… I'll never sleep now." She felt a wave of displeasure. The kind of annoyance Ma Telly had when she had to tell Pa to wipe his boots on the mat before coming in _again_. Footsteps walked away down the hall. There was a sharp, rapid set of knocks on a door.

A door opened and a wave of shock came over her.

"Reno, what have I told you about leaving your conquests laying around?"

"Chief!?"

"And what is she doing with one of our suits?"

Shit… he wasn't an echo. She put her hands on the back of the couch and lifted herself up enough to peek over it. The man was looking at Reno but was pointing towards her on the couch. Reno had apparently fallen asleep in his boxers.

"Get that tramp out of here and wake th-."

There was a spike of fierce protectiveness and a hand shot out to grab the out-stretched hand. "Don't call her that," he said darkly.

Surprise and shock, clearly more at Reno's actions than his statement. "Reno…" the tone was quiet and dangerous, like a Tiger to its cub, "unhand me."

There was a brief moment where Reno held his gaze, then seemed to realize who he was talking to, and that he had been dead. "Holy shit, chief! It really is you!" he embraced the man quickly before pulling away. "It's not even 0600 what are you doin' wakin' us up this early?"

"I would have waited if there wasn't some tr-," he stopped himself, "woman sleeping on the couch."

"Trying to sleep," Ralena said, still peeking over the back of the sofa like a Mako-eyed rabbit. "But I give up," she stood and threw off the blanket, "I'll make coffee."

"I'll get dressed, chief, then I'll fill you in." Excited, Reno closed the door , leaving Tseng to stare at it.

The man walked over to the bar that separated the kitchen from the lounge area, and stared at the back of the woman making coffee. "Don't hold it against him," she said, "As he told me, he has over a decade he feels he has to make up for."

"Why you?" He asked, seeing her face now, he easily recognized her from the reports and the church, when she was sleeping next to Valentine.

She looked over her shoulder and smirked at him. "I thought Turks liked to figure this stuff out on their own. It'll be pretty obvious in a minute. Reno can't wait to tell you, so you have a time limit," she said as she finished getting the hot brew going. She turned around and leaned against the counter, "Do you prefer tea? I can get the kettle going."

It _was_ obvious. The smirk, the way she tilted her head, their casual nature. The rapid fire change in topic. At the moment she even had the disheveled suit thing going on, but that could just be because she had been trying to sleep. "You were with Avalanche… how did you end up here?"

She smirked, an expression exactly like Reno's you'll-find-out-soon-enough face. He would too, less than a minute later Reno came trotting out of his room, swung around Tseng and the bar and plopped an arm around the woman's shoulder. "So, chief, this is my sister, Ralena. Ral, this is Tseng."

She raised a brow at him, "Wow, you got all formal on that one. It's like he's your dad or something."

"No, dad was our dad, my most dad-like guy after that would have been Veld." 

"I guess he's not around anymore?" She did not really remember their parents, when things calmed down she would ask him about them later.

"Nah, he-" Reno happened to glance down for a moment, "Oh my god can you put some pants on!?" He quickly averted his eyes, as if the sight of his sister's bare legs would make him go blind.

She rolled her eyes, "What's the big deal? I'm wearing underwear, and you can't see it under the shirt anyway."

"But… WHY aren't you wearing pants!?"

"Because," she said with an impatient drawl, "I'm still technically a prisoner, I'm sore as hell and believe it or not, sleeping on the enemy's couch isn't _actually_ comfortable."

Tseng bit back a grin, yes, they were certainly siblings. He watched as she rolled her eyes again and walked over to the couch to grab the clothing in question.

Once the coffee was done, they sat in the lounge. Tseng and Reno both winced at the strength of the beverage and watched the woman who drank it without issue. In the interest of time they just watered theirs down.

"How are you alive, chief?"

"Ree-Cait Sith called in a favor and used an extra unit to get me out of the temple while Avalanche was distracted. Unfortunately the old crew doesn't have the best medical facilities, so it took a while to recover."

"That little shit!" Reno cursed, "He fucking knew you were alive and didn't tell us?"

After that Reno had given him a high level debriefing. Apparently Reno had suspected the woman was his sister from the first report he had seen on her. After all, how many redheads that were about the right age could there be with his long-dead sister's name? Due to various circumstances he had never encountered her in the field. After the Icicle Inn attack, Reeve had pointed him to the 65th floor prison block where they saw each other for the first time in over a decade.

Then she had told Reno that Hojo had infected himself and his staff with Jenova cells, and she was able to detect them. After demonstrating this ability to Rufus, the president confiscated her from the science department.

"And what about the visions you mentioned?" Tseng asked. He saw her face set in that shit-he-heard-me-say-that look.

"What visions?" Reno said, confused. Then he looked at his sister, "_What_ visions?" he repeated sternly.

"I hallucinate things sometimes," she said squirming a little, "It’s a side-effect, it's not important."

"A side-effect of what?" Tseng asked pointedly.

Reno gritted his teeth, clearly this was a sore point for him. But the woman answered, like it was old news. "You don't think sensing Jenova cells comes out of nowhere do you? I was a pet project of Hojo's for years before Sephiroth helped me escape."

Tseng stared.

"What?!" Reno exclaimed, "Not tall, silver and serious? Why didn’t you say so before?"

She gave him a blank look, "You didn't ask, and it's not relevant. One of yours helped him with it. Set me up with a place to go."

Tseng raised a brow, "Who?"

"I'm bad at names… She had auburn wavy hair…"

"Cissnei?"

*******

"I'd like to ask a favor."

The orange haired woman was surprised (compared to Reno, she could hardly call herself a redhead). It wasn't often that Sephiroth even bothered to talk to her group. She wondered if it was because she was the only one left there, finishing up her paperwork. "Are you sure?"

"Yes."

Well, that was intriguing. Sephiroth was smart enough and well versed enough in the ShinRa culture to know what asking a favor could cost. Especially when it came to her group. "Were you looking for any Turk, or me?"

"You."

He was purposefully giving short, non-detailed answers, his catlike eyes were scanning the room for surveillance devices. "Why don't we go talk somewhere else?" she suggested.

He nodded and when she left the room he fell into step beside her, the great hero Sephiroth couldn't be seen trailing behind others. She was fine with that, it gave her a chance to read his body language. As usual his steps were sure and measured, a hard ingrained military gait that she imagined was not easy to break out of. While the man always had an aura of confidence and danger about him there seemed to be an added intensity that was different. Given what had happened to his only two friends that was expected, but she suspected this was about something else.

As she pushed the button on the elevator Sephiroth found himself wondering if Cissnei really was the right choice for this. Normally when he needed something off the books, like he had with the ghost access card, he would just cross reference his fan club list with whatever skill set he needed. Then he would ask them, pretending he didn't know they idolized him and they would fall over themselves for the privilege of doing him a favor. For this, though, he needed skills and discretion. He knew the Turks had the proper skill set, but they were all trained to obey the company and 'do their damn paperwork.' He knew that Cissnei looked up to Zack Fair, and if she held the idealistic young SOLDIER in such high regard, she might be willing to aid him in this endeavor.

They got out of the elevator and walked out onto one of the balconies overlooking the city. Despite the breathtaking views, few people used them, it was windy this high up. "This is a blind spot in the company's surveillance," she said, "I trust you won't inform those irresponsible enough to let such a thing exist."

"Of course not."

"So, what is this favor?"

"I need something set up, but it has to be low profile, I can't be connected to it." He walked to the railing as he talked, "and it has to be off the books." It had taken him too long to get to this point. Months of thinking about how he could get Ralena out and _keep her out_ of Hojo's hands. Any plan that he came up where he worked solo would not work for long.

"hmm," she said, crossing her arms, stepping towards the railing. It made sense. Being the SOLDIER poster boy along with his distinctive appearance it impossible for him to do almost anything under the radar. "Why me?" She asked, turning and leaning her back against the railing.

"I have reason to believe you would be sympathetic to my reasons."

"Which are?"

"I will let you determine that yourself."

She smirked, too bad he wasn't more like Zack, he would've blurted the whole thing out and she wouldn't have had to guess. "Why do you think I would sympathize?"

He smirked, "I would think that Black Suit would like helping a hero behave like one."

She stiffened, but tried not to show it.

"Let me tell you a story," he said. Even if she said there were no electronic witnesses, it was better to be cautious. He leaned his elbows on the railing, and looked over the city below. "Once upon a time, a poor girl was taken in from the street and brought to the castle to live. She was not made a princess, or even given a job as a servant. She was handed over to the king's wizard. Living in the tower, she was only allowed in her room or the wizard's workshop. The wizard used many potions and spells on her, testing them. She never knew why, or what he hoped to prove."

Cissnei listened intently, she'd never heard Sephiroth speak this much. It made the stilted, halting manner in which he talked more obvious. His pauses were just a little bit longer than other people's, like each sentence needed it's space.

"One evening, while wandering the halls, a knight of the kingdom stumbled upon her in a cell, where she had been locked as punishment. Normally he was cold, and didn't bother with other people, but something about her situation intrigued him. So he came to visit her again in her room in the early hours before the wizard and his apprentices were awake. They spoke often, and she knew nothing of his role as a knight. She treated him in a way he imagined that normal people treated each other. He even snuck her out of her room so she could see the sky for the first time in years..."

There was an almost wistful pause this time, as his eyes wandered up to the cloud filled sky above them. There were a few gaps where pinpoints of light could be spotted. "Then one day, in the wizard's workshop, he saw the girl sleeping," his jaw clenched, "She was in a pod, with tubes and needles in her, and the knight couldn't shake the image."

Cissnei's eyes widened surprise, she knew Sephiroth was not a robot, but she had never seen an expression from him other than smug superiority or cool confidence. This was a kind of angry helplessness she never would have expected from the man.

"The knight realized that despite all of his prestige and influence and fame, he couldn't save this girl... Not alone." It had taken him too much time for him to accept that fact. The other day she'd had bandages around her waist, she didn't move a lot but told him it was a natural healing test. When he saw her lying there, trying to be chipper with what was likely three inch long incisions in her sides, he finally swallowed his pride. If he had done it sooner, she wouldn't have had to go through that.

There was silence for several seconds, "What kind of help did the knight need?" Cissnei prompted.

"Someone to find a sanctuary for the girl to go to. Someone to take her there once the knight can get her out of the castle. The knight cannot be seen with her or the wizard will find her again."

"I had no idea you could be so poetic," the woman said.

He let out a small chuff that she supposed counted as a laugh, "It's hard not to be when Genesis wouldn't stop spouting LOVELESS."

After several seconds of consideration, she mused aloud, "I think the story would end well if he could find a hunter." He was right, as the head of Zack Fair's fan club, Black Suit preferred to help a different hero, but where was the harm in this?

"What if the hunters get orders from the king to find her?"

"I think it would be a while," she said. Oh sure, Hojo would be pissed, and the Turks would likely be sent to go search for her. But things were busy with Avalanche right now, who knew how long it would be before such orders were given priority? After all, Hojo didn't give them orders, the President and Vice President did, and their concerns didn't always line up. "Besides, the hunter can give the girl a few tips on the way out."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I think when I first wrote the original version way back when, I made Ralena a read head because I thought scarlet red hair was cool and because I could refer to her as "the red head." It wasn't until half way through writing the original that I decided who her brother was.


	36. Attack On Midgar

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Notifications; Reactions; Contact with the Enemy; Redirected; Voice Mail

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter ended a bit earlier than I had planned... but it is almost 7500 words, so I guess that's ok

Reno sat in the lounge of the Turk's office area with his sister. They were eating lunch and engaging in light chit chat with longer awkward silences in between. She had given him a glare when he brought her back a smoothie and salad, but chicken wings for himself. Today Rude and Elena had decided to take their lunches elsewhere to give the siblings a chance to catch up while Tseng was in Rufus' office, likely doing the same but in a more official capacity.

He looked across the coffee table as Ralena picked around whatever vegetables she didn't like and tried to find every last bit of meat that came in it. He wondered if she was normally this picky of if it was a side-effect of her recovery.

Reno frowned.

He had thought about this a lot over the years, reuniting with his sister, and all of the glorious and horrible ways that could go. From having to kill each other as enemy agents to sappy hugs and late night chats. But he had never imagined that it would be this _strained_. They were on different sides, true, but he didn't feel like they were at cross purposes. 

It wasn't that they couldn't talk about anything, but a few minutes into any topic she would let half of a name or some hint of what "home" was like and would clam up.

It pissed him off.

Given her experiences, she was mistrustful of the company and she was under the opinion that anything she told him would be recorded somewhere for the ShinRa to take advantage of. He could not think of doing anything to hurt her, but if she wasn't his sister… she would have been right.

Reno snatched up his drink and took down a few gulps to calm himself down.

He thought his job would have gotten in the way of her knowing about him, instead it was in the way of him getting to know _her_. From that first record of her passing through Junon months ago with just her Chocobo, it was like she had stepped back into existence. He had already demanded that Reeve give him everything he had on her. Unfortunately, as the only executive with the necessary understanding, he was justifiably busy picking up Scarlet's work on the cannon.

Frustration rolled off of him in the quiet between Reno and Ralena and he violently ripped some meat off of a chicken wing as if ravaging his food could dispel his frustrations. A moment later he cursed and covered his mouth. He bit his fucking lip.

Concerned, wary green eyes looked across the table as he reached for his drink to soothe the injury as best he could with the cold liquid.

His mood wasn't going to help the situation, either.

A ping filled the quiet and Reno picked up his phone with a napkin to look at it. His brow furrowed for a moment.

"What is it?"

He put the phone down and wiped his hands clean, "I have some notifications set up in the system. Just can't remember why I flagged this guy." He moved his food aside, opened the laptop he had left on the table and started to look over his notes. Less than a minute later he a dozen red flags go off in his mind. "… shit."

"Is something wrong?" Ralena asked with bright green eyes. Her tone clearly said she knew it was. Right now his poker face was fucking non-existent.

He held up a finger and grabbed his phone to call Tseng. "Chief? We gotta problem…," before he could explain anything else, another alert came in with the sound of distant thunder.

*******

Cait Sith's mouth opened in alarm, but the body was a few seconds behind in moving, as though his operator were stumbling over to the controls. "What THE HELL are you guys do- Wait, we haven't started yet?" The other members of Avalanche stared at the robot, all of them, except for Cid, arranged in arguably comfortable spots in the back of the shipping truck among crates of produce.

"What happened?" Cloud asked.

"I just got a Security Alert about intruders in Reac-" A loud, but distant boom hit their ears.

"That was thunder, right?" Tifa asked, already she knew better.

There was silence in the back of the truck for a moment until the window to the cab slid open and Cid looked in throughit. "Well it ain't our party, but it looks like we got ourselves a distraction."

"Reactor 8 just got bombed…" Cait Sith reported dully in disbelief. "I just got the security footage up… it looks like it was- oh."

"What!?"

"Remember those living bombs from the crater?"

*******

"It seems we have other issues, Reno," Tseng said into his phone. His placed his laptop on Rufus' desk, showing the other man the cameras of the reactor as he spoke. Plumes of fire and smoke came out from multiple sections of the structure. So far it wasn't as bad as the Reactor 1 explosion, multiple smaller explosions, and none on them at an optimal location. "There's a number of grenade class monsters in Reactor 8… yes they do seem oddly organized… I see." Rufus raised a brow at Tseng. "No, stay where you are for now. I'll call Rude up here."

The head of the Turks hung up with Reno and moved to call Rude, for now asking that Elena be on alert and remain near the entrance to the lowest restricted elevator above the 59th floor.

"Leaving Reno on guard?" Rufus asked with an air of feigned curiosity.

Tseng met his boss's eye and nodded. "I wouldn't put it passed her to take advantage of a distraction." He did not know the woman that well, but she was enough like Reno to make him wary of her.

"He thinks it's Sephiroth?"

Tseng nodded, "What little evidence we have suggests it."

"Heidegger's back from Junon, right?" Rufus sighed, then continued without awaiting a response. "Get him on the line…"

*******

"We're stayin' put for now," Reno said reluctantly, pushing more buttons on his phone as another, now familiar ping went off. He put it in his jacket pocket and addressed the issue on his computer.

The little notifications were now setting Ralena on edge. At this point she assumed that each noise the phone made was a bad thing. "Now what?"

Reno glanced up at her, then back to his screen. "Nothing unexpected, just a bunch of civil disturbances, people freaking out about the bombing. The Police will get it under control while some units get dispatched to the reactor."

"Will it be enough?" she asked, "I heard you say you think it's monster's under Sephiroth's control…" She was glad that they did not suspect the others of doing it. She knew about Reactor 1 by now, but Cid and Cait Sith would never allow for Avalanche to engage in a repeat performance.

She closed her eyes for a moment as the emotional murmur of thousands of people beneath her became aware of the situation and their agitation collectively rose.

Reno watched her, and saw her eyes open, glowing and concerned. He hated seeing her eyes glowing, they shouldn't _do_ that. "You sense something else?" he asked.

"I… I don't know. It's really… foggy right now."

He didn't exactly know what her words meant, but it added to his own unease about the circumstances. He stood and went to his office. In the time it took to get there and turn around, he re-entered the room while he checked over his mag rod.

Reno's body language was obvious as she watched him cross back to the other sofa. "Are you expecting trouble?"

He looked at her over his shoulder and nodded to her. "This doesn't feel right," he said, "there's gotta be more to it." The attack on Icicle Inn was too straightforward. Large dumb monsters to overtake a location. It was too simple for a commander like Sephiroth. There was also the matter of the first alert Reno had gotten. There were enough other, smaller, yellow alerts going off that he knew he might miss something that really mattered if he didn't stay on his toes.

*******

The truck carrying Avalanche had kept moving into the warehouses of Sector 5. The security claimed that, since all of the action was on the opposite side of the city, they were ordered to keep the supply chain going. "You're early," the guard told the driver, handing back his identification, "We weren't supposed to get your delivery for another two days."

"I'm sorry ta tell ya this," Pa Telly told the gate guard, "But produce don't ripen on ShinRa's timetable, an' you know we ain't got a big enough cold house for all this. If ya want me to come back in two days halfa this won't be good fer eatin'."

"Yeah, yeah. I hear ya," the guard said in exasperation, waving him through. "Warehouse 23, as usual."

"Will do." Pa rolled the window back up and drove the truck into the warehouse district, getting into a line of trucks waiting to unload their cargo. After it looked like they would be parked for a little while, Pa and Cid got out the cab, and opened up the back of the truck.

The members of Avalanche quickly disembarked, they had no worry for the driver of the truck behind them who was part of the same shipment and also from the same town as Pa. Tifa was physically directing the mog down, as it was currently on auto-follow while Cait Sith's operator was trying to get more information on the current situation.

While they collectively stood between the trucks and did one last check of their gear, Yuffie slid up next to the robot and gave a gentle poke. "Hey, Cait. You still there…?"

"For now we'll proceed as planned," Cloud reviewed. "While there may be forces headed to Sector 1 we should assume that others will be on alert."

"We might get lucky with that," Cait Sith said, "There's a lot of little disturbances popping up. If we stick to the back alleys I think we can get by.

Yuffie tugged on the cat's cape. "Hey, Cait."

Vincent looked up at the teen, then suddenly looked around as though there was something on the edge of his hearing.

"Cait!" the girl said a third time.

"What, Yuffie?" he sighed.

"Are monsters normally in the warehouse district?"

The cat opened his mouth to answer, then stopped. "What kind?"

The teen waved him over near the front of the truck behind Pa's to look between two buildings. The robot and Cloud came over, in the alley were two floating grenade monsters. As they idled, they moved to reveal a pair of troopers in cold weather camo looking out the other exit to the alley.

Cloud grabbed Cait Sith and Yuffie and dragged them away from the alley entrance before they could be spotted.

"Shit!" Cait Sith cursed, earning him a few looks for his unprecedented language. There was the sounds of things moving around a desk and furious typing coming from the toy, muted slightly by the closed mouth. "This is not good. We need to handle this." He didn't wait for anyone to ask before clarifying. "If I'm right they're headed for the munitions depot…"

"Why us?" Tifa asked.

"Whether they are there to steal stuff or blow it up isn't good." the cat said, shaking his head, "Heidegger already mobilized most of the ShinRa forces to the Northern part of the city..."

"What's the big deal?" Yuffie asked, "If they destroy some of ShinRa's weapons then that's good for us, right?"

Cid shook his head, "Depending on what they got in there, a lot of nearby homes could be damaged or destroyed."

Cloud knew they did not have a lot of time for debate, at least they already had contingencies for splitting up and rendezvous points laid out. "Ok, we'll split up. Red team will proceed to the tower and our primary objective," he said, gesturing to himself, Cid, Vincent and Red XIII. "Blue Team will try to delay or stop Sephiroth's bombs. If ShinRa forces arrive, retreat. Cait will have to choose our meet up location based on the circumstances at the time."

"I know they say no plan survives first contact with the enemy," Barret muttered, "but I ain't even shot anything yet."

"I'm sure you will get the chance," Nanaki replied.

Vincent moved around to the front of the truck where the farmer was standing by the open door of the cab, "Paul, it might be best if you leave now."

Pa Telly looked around, then back at the gunman. "The truck's boxed in at the moment, but I'll get out first chance. You just bring our girl back home alive."

Vincent nodded to the man, determination swelling within him. He returned to the back of the truck in time to see Cloud pocket his phone. With a motion towards the alley and another in the opposite direction, Avalanche split into two groups and headed off into the city.

*******

"Another attack?" Rufus asked, as he noted Tseng's expression. Alerts like those should have come to his own computer as well.

"Not yet, sir." Tseng said carefully, "I just got word from one of our sources that one of his units spotted more Grenade Class monsters in the Warehouse district in Sector 5."

Rufus raised a brow, "… And why does he have eyes there right now?"

"He neglected to mention," the Turk replied dryly.

Rufus almost smirked, it was hardly surprising. He hit the button to unmute the phone on his desk, "Heidegger."

"Yes, Mr. President?"

"Alert security at the Sector 5 warehouses."

There was a pause on the other side, followed by a slightly alarmed reply. "Sir?"

Rufus took in a deep breath, but his voice came out with its normal collective calm. "It seems there are additional hostile forces making a move on the military depot."

"But sir, I moved all available forces to Sectors 1 and 8!"

Rufus narrowed his eyes. The man was always overreacting. "This is likely to be a staged multi-pronged attack, Heidegger, led by an experienced military commander. We will not treat this like it's a handful of disorganized terrorists. I want all sectors to have active security forces on alert, ASA-"

Rufus stopped as three red squares popped up on his and Tseng's screens. He took half a second to register the general meaning of them. "I hope you're people have been running security drills, Heidegger, things are about to get busy."

*******

Tifa and Yuffie crept along the edge of the warehouse rooftops, quietly following the group of grenades and troops. There had counted four of the explosive creatures so far. Having fought them in the crater they knew that they could be killed before detonation, and time magic could slow them. Fortunately, it looked like this was a small group, but they convinced that they had the stance of a scouting party and that more would arrive before long.

Cait Sith and Barret were on the far side of the building, waiting to be called closer over the comms. This was as much for Cait's benefit as well, he was on auto-follow as it appeared his operator was busy during an event like this, but he was doing his best to keep them appraised of the situations going on in the city.

It looked as though Sephiroth's troops were waiting for some trigger, or order before entering the building. That benefitted Avalanche as it allowed the two on the ground to move around and get into a better position. After nearly five minutes of watching, the troops directed a Grenade to the door and Yuffie began chanting a stop spell.

*******

Ralena was having a hard time holding together. Between Reno's pinging phone, the man's growing apprehension and the fog of emotions from the people in the building nearby getting more negative it was a wonder she wasn't curled up in the corner.

"I don't like this," she said honestly, "I want to be able to do something."

"We got people for this, Ral. Security, military, SOLDIERs."

"If I could at least have my materia back I'd feel much be-"

She stopped as he shook his head. "Sorry, sis. No can do, boss's orders."

She crossed her arms and sat back in the couch. "Figures," she muttered bitterly. She shouldn't be surprised, they didn't even trust her with a private room. Reno was about to retort when her eyes brightened and her expression changed to one of confusion then quickly alarm. "Get down!"

Battle ingrained reflexes saw both red heads hitting the floor as the fogged over glass walls exploded inwards. Flashing red lights and a siren, were followed up with a gunshot, which stopped the former and reduced the latter to a quieter, strained version. The smoke settled and revealed a man with raven black hair and a pair of troopers, all with cat-like green Mako eyes.

"Where is the Black Materia?" the SOLDIER asked. He was flanked by two troopers, all wore long coats and began pulling out their guns.

"Shit!" Reno cursed, standing to take a position in front of his sister. "It's a men from the glacier base."

"What?" she asked, honestly confused about the statement. At the moment, the men were merely leveling their guns at the pair. Reno gestured for her to move behind him towards the hallway that led into the offices.

"Answer my question, Turk."

"-Tch- Would you believe me anyway?" he asked. Reno looked over his shoulder to Ralena and stated conversationally, "We might have lost a military outpost to Sephiroth."

She looked back and forth between Reno and the SOLDIER for a second, "_Now_ can I have my stuff back?"

Reno rolled his eyes. At least now the matter of the first alert Reno received was now solved. Reno had alerts for the members of the missing camp set up almost as soon as he came back from finding the remains of the base empty and the crater tunnel collapsed. If any of them swiped their badges, the Turks were notified. Since the reactor explosion some thirty minutes ago, he had gotten eight such alerts between Junon and Midgar.

"Subdue them and search the area." The SOLDIER said, paying little attention to the sibling's antics. The troopers raised their guns and the redheads dodged in different directions, Reno quickly came up on one, and Ralena chucked a lamp at the other. Reno disarmed his opponent in short order, he turned to attack the SOLDIER and order his sister to retreat when he noticed that the man appeared staggered somehow. He turned to see the trooper closing with Ralena, eyes ablaze and staring at the S-2. He threw out a small energy pyramid in her direction.

Green eyes turned to the shape and she dove back into the hall and it hit the trooper, expanding into something just big enough to hold the man. Ralena looked at the captive, then her brother. "Were you gonna bubble me!?" she cried in outrage. She might still be sick, but she was a warrior for Gaea's sake.

"You woulda been safe!" he retorted, parrying a swing from the recovering SOLDIER.

"Give me back my stuff and I'll be _useful_!" she yelled from behind the force cage.

Reno growled, "_FINE!_ My office, box behind my desk!" He was now glad he had convince Elena to take over as custodian of his sister's gear. In the current circumstance they would not have had an easy time getting into the blonde's office. The Turk retreated quickly, sliding along the side of the occupied pyramid to join his sister in the hall. He focused for a moment and put up another pyramid just in time for it to block a burst of fire from the SOLDIER's hands.

Behind him, Ralena stumbled around the doorway and into the office to find the footlocker with a four dial lock on it. She briefly checked to see if it was already open. "What's the combination?"

"Your birthday!" he yelled over the gunfire impacting the impromptu shield.

"I don't know when that is!" she shouted back, exasperated.

"For fuck's sake!" Reno grit his teeth and threw up another force pyramid to block the hall, just in time for the first to be shattered. He rushed to join her in his office, set the four digit code, threw the lid open and turned back to the door.

Her hand immediately went for her materia filled bracelet. At the sound of her voice, Reno glanced at her casting and he saw the lines of a magic barrier form in front of him moments before he turned to see a blade scrape against it. Wasting no time, he pushed back with a flurry of attacks, forcing the SOLDIER back out into the hallway. The enclosed space did not do much for either of their fighting styles. More chanting reached his ears from behind the desk and green energy flowed around him, sealing up the cuts he had received from the exploding glass earlier.

The fighting became very limited after that. In the hallway, Reno had a little more range of motion than the SOLDIER, who kept hitting the wall with his sword. Ralena was able to heal the Turk, but not able to get an angle on the troopers in order to attack them. Likewise, the troopers couldn't get a clean shot on either red head.

The S-2 pulled back a little to assess the situation when a voice came from out in the main hall. "Sir! I came to-" Elena's sentence turned into a squeak of surprise as the troopers turned their guns in her direction. The blonde Turk twisted around to dodge behind a column that used to stand between panes of smoked glass.

"Rookie!" Reno called, "Pinball Wizard!"

A small orb flew into the lobby as Reno ducked into his office. A loud bang and bright light filled the room as the stun grenade went off. The Turks immediately rushed in, taking out the pair of lesser troops before they could recover while Ralena summoned green bubbles that surrounded the SOLDIER and sunk into his skin.

Hindered by the _Bio_ spell and fighting two Turks protected by magical barriers, the S-2 was taken down shortly after his comrades.

In the aftermath Reno nudged his laptop with his foot then pulled out his phone, "Alright, we got alerts in the Science Department, Weapons Research Storage, Subfloor Storage," he muttered. Those weren't a surprise, the SOLDIER said they were looking for the Black Materia, and those were the mostly likely places for it to be, or in the Turk's office. "bunch o' minor disturbances… Attacks on the outer guard towers bordering Sectors 6 and 7." Also expected, the reactor and tower attacks were a great distraction and likely triggered a number of smaller disturbances among the population. He stopped short at the next set of alerts, "Shit. We got several on the SOLDIER floors, that's not a good sign."

As he spoke Ralena looked around the lobby. Scorched and shot up furniture and walls, not to mention the glass everywhere. "Sorry about your office..." she said.

Reno glanced around casually then shrugged and put his phone to his ear, "Eh, it's been worse." The women shared a glance. "Yo, partner, you make it to the Chief yet?... Yeah we handled our intrusion. Tell Tseng we're due for another remodel. Three of the enemy showed up asking for the Object."

Ralena: "…wait, when did you get it?"

Reno shook his head at her, but continued his conversation with Rude. "Alright, we'll be there in a few," he said into the phone before he hung up and turned to the women. "Girls, get your gear, we're goin' to the boss's office and I'm gonna lock it up here."

Elena tilted her head, confused. "How, sir? The front walls are all gone."

"Wait and see, rookie."

While the ladies got their combat gear, Reno dragged the enemies out into the hall, not bothering to check if they were alive or not, but cuffing them together around a pillar as a minor insurance method. Much to confusion of the women, he waved them into Tseng's office where he had popped open a wall panel and was punching in numbers. A moment later there was the sound of gears as heavy duty metal plates came down in front of where the glass used to be in the Turk's lobby. Before they could ask how they were supposed to leave, he punched in another code and a set of wall panels opened to reveal what appeared to be a small closet. "It's not the most spacious elevator," he said casually, "but it'll get us to the boss."

The three piled in and Elena eyed the other woman's sword belt warily as she dug into her saddle bag. The redhead opened up her phone and was surprised to find it almost fully charged.

"What are you doing?" Reno asked.

She looked at him, "I want to see if anyone in Avalanche left me any messages."

He saw a certain look steal over her face, it was not unlike the looks Cissnei used to get whenever Zack got brought up. "You're checking that now?" he asked.

She gestured to the small space they were in, "The elevator's not that fast. I just want to know if everyone else is ok." 

She opened the phone, then went to her most recent texts.

1h 22m ago 

**Red Ryder**:  
66 843 929

1h 15m ago

**Forest Bandit**:  
OMG VV can't txt LOL

**Forest Bandit**:  
OTW BTW

10m ago

**Buster**:  
Delay, sorry

"What is it?" Reno asked, seeing his sister's confused expression.

"I don't know," she said honestly, "I mean I really don't understand what Yuffie is texting me." This was hardly the first time, but the shinobi always laughed when anyone asked what she meant, as though she took some pride in knowing something the others didn't.

Reno looked over her shoulder and sucked at his teeth, "Tch… I gotta make a call."

"Again?"

Reno dialed and put his phone to his ear, it didn't take long for it to be picked up and for him to growl at the other person, "What the fuck are your people doing!?"

A flustered male voice came from the other end, "Which people? I'm managing a lot right now."

"Who the fuck else would I be talking about, Tuesti?"

"It looks like we're covering Heidegger's ass and stopping explosions. The president is informed and I'm too busy just to be yelled at." The voice grew distant, "I said reroute power throu-" the line cut out as the man on the other end hung up.

****

There may have been a widescale assault on the city, but the no one had taken the standard patrol robots off of their routes. Avalanche's Red team managed to avoid some, but they had miles of tunnel to tread through, and periodically found themselves dismantling the patrols via combat. It was annoying, but Cloud's team could feel confident that if they were quick about it, then they wouldn’t have to worry about any human security forces showing up in response.

They moved at an easy jog, following Cid's directions using conduits as a guide. Chances were that the assault on the city would go on for a while, but they needed to take advantage of the chaos and confusion while it was there. It was true they had done it before, but breaking someone out of ShinRa Tower had never gone smoothly.

Vincent grit his teeth, with all of these constant encounters he was getting close to his limit already. He could not lose control to Chaos so soon. Everytime he had so far, Vincent had passed out for hours afterward. Besides that, Talos would be a much better weapon against their current foes. The lightning attacks would likely fry their circuits and, while tall, the gigas also did not have wings to worry about.

"Cait," Cloud called into the comms, "Can you help clear a path for us?"

"Sorry," the voice responded, "No can do."

"Roger that," Cloud didn’t bother to press for an explanation, their man on the inside clearly sounded strained. Not for the first time he wondered what job he held in the company.

They moved along for another few minutes when a blast came out of an unseen side passage and struck both Vincent and Nanaki from the flank. Almost immediately Vincent felt himself being tugged back down into his mind, but was surprised that the entity that passed him was not the black winged Chaos, but the Death Gigas.

He was mildly comforted that the beast was willing to take tactics into account.

*******

"I really don't like this…" Cait Sith muttered from his spot where they hid behind some crates.

"We're in a warehouse full of explosives, defending it from monsters that blow up, what's not to like?" Barret asked. "On the bright side," he muttered, reaching into a box and loading the grenade launcher on his arm, "I got ammo for days." He fired the weapon out of the main doors that they were guarding while Yuffie kept watch from the roof, _Slowing_ or _Stopping_ enemies as needed.

Tifa rolled her eyes as Cait Sith's mog readied belt feed ammo for the man's gun. "That's not what I'm talking about," Cait Sith said, "I'm getting some readings from the rea- gah!" The cat robot's arms went wide and it nearly fell off of its mount. The exclamation was followed by the sounds of a piece of furniture falling over, the microphone hitting the ground and the robot going oddly still.

"Cait? Cait are you ok!?" Tifa asked in between Barret's gunfire..

From the robot's mouth came more subtle sounds that Tifa couldn't really make out. Then he spoke again, "Sorry about that," Cait said, panting hard, "My secretary attacked me."

"What!?"

In his office Reeve knelt down next to the now unconscious woman, and pulled back an eye lid to see slit pupils with a few sparks of unnatural red streaks radiating in the iris. "It seems the infection that Ralena is sniffing out is far more widespread than we thought…" he was trying not to pant too hard into the microphone. He was certainly not a man used to physical combat. He excused himself from the others, sighing as he answered another call from the utilities control center, which was where he really should be right now, all while dragging his secretary back outside of his office. Answering questions, giving orders and making sure the woman would recover, he went back into his office and locked the doors, as well as barring it with disguised mechanical security measures that he never thought he would use.

"Say that last part again?" he asked his chief of operations, "Who the hell authorized mainframe control!?" This was the worst possible time for such a thing to happen, then again, that was probably the point. He brought up the security feed of the Mako cannon wonder who had managed to get up there in all of this chaos.

"Shit…"

This had to be dealt with _right now_. Given that the blue team was pinned down, Cait knew he'd have to call Cloud and re-route them, especially since Heidegger's groups were in complete disarray and chaos had broken out among the SOLDIERs.

*******

Sephiroth wanted Midgar destroyed, it will be awfully inconvenient, but he could make that happen. He would make that happen. It would be further proof at the success of his project. The perfect soldier, the perfect _being_. A being that he himself, that Hojo, had made.

Hojo stood at the controls of the Mako cannon, hands rapidly moving across dials and the keys of the console. He looked at the settings, a manic grin on his face as he waited for the results of his work.

He didn't know a whole lot about the mechanical applications of weaponizing Mako, but he knew enough to overload the device and cause a feedback into the reactors. It was just taking time to pull all of that power, if he wanted it to succeed he had to get enough built up. A few of his more recent experiments lingered nearby seemingly uncaring, but acting as guardians nonetheless.

"Hojo! What are you doing!? You'll destroy the city!"

The professor frowned as the voice came over the loud speakers. Hojo laughed at how far below him the other man was, "You were always lacking in ambition Reeve. One or two Midgars is a small price to pay."

"Dammit, Hojo!"

The scientist glared at the monitor as the build-up began to slow, clearly Reeve planned to show a little backbone for a change and try to stop him.

-Hmph- "try" would be the operative word.

*******

Cait Sith's voice came over the comms with faux calmness overlaying obvious panic. "Cloud… we have a situation."

"What is it Cait Sith?"

"First, where are you guys right now?" the feline asked.

Cloud looked over at the others. They had been taking a short break after Vincent changed back from Talos. He had held the form for longer than normal and had already consumed two protein bars to make up for how much the transformation took out of him. "Point Delta," he answered, "We're about to leave the tunnels."

"I'm sorry but you need to get to the controls of the Mako Cannon in Sector 7," Cait Sith said, "Hojo is trying to overload it and you are closer."

"What about Ralena?" Red XIII asked, concerned about abandoning their friend.

Cid grunted as he stood up from the piping he had chosen to rest on. "If Hojo blows up the city it won't be good for her either."

"The goal hasn't changed," Vincent said plainly, "We just have a new obstacle." In his career the number of missions that required an on the spot change far outweighed the ones that did not. He was not happy about the detour, but he had also been most anxious to put a bullet in Hojo's brain since he woke up.

"We're on it, Cait," Cloud said, "Just give us directions."

*******

"Are you fucking kidding me with this shit?" Reno muttered. The Turk's elevator let out in an office down the hall from Rufus'. He, Ralena and Elena were crouched on either side of the entrance to the lobby outside of it. The room had a scattering of people standing outside the door, all of whom stood still facing it like statues.

"What are they waiting for?" the blonde among them whispered.

"Orders," Ralena said, eyes a bright green. She could just barely sense the connection, like a spider's thread you could only see from the right angle. "Sephiroth has hooks in them, but I don't think he's looking this way."

They pulled away from the door and ducked into a nearby conference room. So that they could speak more freely.

"How are we going to get to the president?" the Blonde asked.

Reno crossed his arms in thought, "Maybe we can rush the door, I can call Rude to ready to let us in."

"Won't they rush the door too though?"

"I-," Ralena started. When they turned to look at her there was a moment's hesitation, the desire to keep her abilities a secret from ShinRa was hard ingrained for her. She took a deep breath, surviving now was more important. "I might be able to disrupt the connection. I'm not sure for how long and it might be… unpleasant."

"Unpleasant for who?" Reno asked warily.

Ralena swallowed and looked at her brother, "All of us. I can't hit a group that large and keep you out of the effect." The focus it took to exclude people was far more taxing than targeting an individual on a normal day.

"Hit us with what?" Elena asked, " You got some special materia?"

The woman shook her head, and her eyes lit up green again in response. "I have a few other tricks up my sleeve, curtesy of the Professor."

Reno frowned at her, "We're gonna have to have a talk about that one day…"

"What will it feel like?" the blonde Turk asked, eyeing her suspiciously.

Green eyes stared blankly in the direction of the door as the empath thought about her best chance of success. She was guessing that a strong enough output of emotion would disrupt the influence that Sephiroth had on those people, and it might only work because she didn't think he was paying attention. The biggest issue Ralena saw right now was that with everything going on around them there was only one emotion that she felt confident would be potent enough. "Fear."

*******

Before they had started their mad dash across the lobby, Reno had his doubts about what his sister said she could do. Touching someone and knowing they had Jenova cells was a far cry from making a dozen people react the way they did. When he hung up the phone with Rude, they began the brief countdown. When they hit zero a wave of something washed over him and the fear within him welled up to meet it. Years of training and experience kept his legs moving as the people waiting in front of the doors crouched down and shivered where they had once stood.

When they were nearly to the door, with a wide-eyed Rude holding it open he heard his sister call after Elena. Reno cursed as he saw the rookie duck behind the receptionist desk. He didn't get the chance to yell at her, as he saw her drag a man in a suit out from behind the desk and shove him in front of her into the president's office. He had not been standing there like the others and Reno guessed that he had been hiding from his mind controlled co-workers.

Once the door shut behind them, the pressure of fear eased off of Reno, but the feeling still lingered and he still found himself feeling uncharacteristically out of breath. "Was the lobby always that long?" he panted.

"Glad you were able to make it." Tseng said calmly as he approached the small group by the door. "Miss Walker, would you please check over this gentleman and the others who sought shelter with us?" There was a moment of confusion is the woman's gaze, then she looked where he gestured to a handful of people sitting in the office's lounge area, including Rufus' assistant. She looked back at the Wutaian man and nodded to him, escorting the man Elena had pulled in with them. "Reno, Rude, secure the door."

********

It was at least a good ten minutes before Ralena had been addressed by any of the Turks, during which time she was able to verify that none of the people hiding in the office with them were host to Jenova cells or currently harboring any ill intentions. They were starting to get antsy, though. The people outside the door had started pawing at the door in a vain and mindless effort to get in.

Rude had been the one to come over first, "All good?"

"Yes," she said quietly, "all clean, and no injuries a proper first aid kit can’t take care of."

Rude nodded and gestured for her to follow him back towards the large curved desk. After a minute of waiting to be addressed while Tseng and Rufus still conferred with Elena and Reno about the state of things in the rest of the building, Ralena pulled out her phone again.

Rufus cast a glare at her, then turned the same gaze to Reno who tried to laugh it off. They continued their briefing nonetheless. Clearly making a phone call was low on his priorities at the moment. She almost held her breath as she heard the other end of the line ring.

"Hello…" the voice answered.

She felt a rush of relief and joy as she heard the voice, even if he almost sounded bored. "Vincent? Vincent, it's me!"

"Ralena?" in the background she heard the clang of metal on metal and then a gunshot uncomfortably close to the receiver.

"A… are you in a fight right now?"

Another two gunshots and a more distant explosion. "Nothing of consequence."

"You know you don't have to answer the phone just because it rings."

Another gunshot then quiet, "Who else would have my number?" She didn't know why, but she felt like he was laughing at her. Still, she couldn't help but smile.

"Voicemail is a thing, you know." She felt like she was talking to someone's technology challenged grandfather.

In the background she heard Cid yell, "What are you doing on the goddamn phone!?" This time distant gunfire and the whirring of a buzz saw.

"I haven't set it up," he replied, more gunshots and the sound of empty shells falling out of the gun and hitting the ground. "We are on our way to stop Hojo, he's trying to overload the cannon. Then we're coming for you… Hold on a moment."

She pinched the bridge of her nose. She could see him, nonchalantly moving the phone to his shoulder and reloading his gun. She waited until she heard it click shut and cock. "Ok, ok whatever, just.. don't worry about me, ok? I'm safe for now."

"You are? Then what is that banging?"

"hmm? Oh, that's just the Jenova-crazed ShinRa employees trying to knock down the door."

"That's safe?" Vincent asked.

"It's a sturdy door. I'm helping defend the Doom Marble."

Elena leaned over to Rude, while Reno laughed. "Did she just call it a 'Doom Marble'?"

Vin: "Ah," he said in acknowledgement

Cid was yelling again, "What are you a teenage girl? Get off the damn-"

Another gunshot, a small explosion followed by clanging metal like mismatched gears trying to turn. "Look, I can tell you're busy giving Cid an aneurism, just know I'm safe. Call me back when you're done?"

There was a few more gunshots before he paused to reply, "I will."

"Oh and Vincent?"

"Hnn?"

"Give Hojo one for me, will you?"

"I will be sure to dedicate one to you." Vincent hung up the phone and reloaded again as another group of security bots came around the corner and began to laydown fire.

Dodging behind a support pillar, Cid shouted back at him, "So what the hell was that about? You got a hot date you can't miss?"

"It was Ralena,"

"Oh, so it _is_ a hot date," Cid grinned.

"She's helping guard the Black Materia," he stated, stepping out and letting lose several rounds of his own while walking to the next piece of cover.

"Good to know she's clear," Cloud replied. He jumped in, swinging his sword clean through the barrel of one of the machines, then used his massive blade as a shield from another hail of bullets. These things were so much harder to fight the last time…." Barret's team cleared their group enough for the security forces to take over and were taking over his team's task. 

Red XIII charged in from the flank of another bot and rammed it low, lifting his head and flipping it over, exposing the under carriage for Cid to come in with his spear.

After a few more well placed shots and strikes, the bots were so much scrap metal and broken parts across the ground. As Cloud made the call to Barret, Vincent felt a weight come off of his shoulders. She was safe, well… relatively. If the Turk's manifesto was relatively unchanged, then she would not be harmed by them as long as she supported their mission.

As Vincent moved up to check around the corner Nanaki fell into pace next to him. "At least some stars have aligned."

Vincent nodded looking down the hall then waving Cloud and Cid forward. "I am glad she is not here."

The feline felt there was something there unsaid. "Because she's safe…"

Crimson eyes shone brighter for a moment as he checked some special ammunition tucked in his cloak, "Because there's no chance that she will see what I am going to do to Hojo…"

The creature cast his friend a side glance, he did not generally bother with such things as revenge, but he did agree that a being such as Hojo needed to be removed from the planet.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AN: For anyone who has never had to deal with it. When you had to text on an old cell phone (or one with just a number pad) you had to hit the number key that had the letter on it to type it, and you had to hit it multiple times if you wanted the second or third letter. I imagine Vincent would have a more simple touch pad cell phone like this… and still not know how to use everything. His intended message = "On the way"
> 
> I also have a drawing in the works for the phone call >:)


	37. Executive Downsizing

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> New Arrivals; Department Head Hunting; Strange bedfellows; Amongst the wreckage;

Reno and Rude were guarding the door on the off chance the office workers outside broke it down, when, suddenly everything went quiet.

"Did you do that?" Reno asked his sister.

She looked up from where she sat nearby, trying to focus on keeping her senses off. Before they had rushed into the office, Elena had cast _Esuna_ on her, in the hopes that it would mitigate the Mako poisoning she had suffered and help her pull off that fear bomb she had used in the lobby. She did feel better, but her senses were overloaded enough that she doubted she could replicate it through a wall so effectively. Hazel eyes looked up at her brother and she shook her head.

A short set of knocks came through the door. Reno raised a brow, "What, suddenly they got manners?"

"Or it's a land shark," Elena muttered, coming up to door as well.

"Mr. President, are you ok in there?" came the voice from the other side, "Sorry it took so long for me to get here, we had a problem on our floor."

"Kunsel!?" the female Turk exclaimed.

"Elena, you're in there too?" the SOLDIER replied, "Are you going to let me in before this sleep spell wears off?"

Reno gave his sister a questioning glance. The woman was at the door, hand to it and green eyes alight. She shrugged, then walked over to him to whisper, unsure how enhanced the SOLDIER's hearing was. "The people really are asleep, but I can't quite tell about _him_ with the door in the way."

They looked back towards the desk, where Rufus sat, he placed his shotgun on the desk within easy reach, then nodded grimly.

As the S-1 walked in, Reno stopped him not far into the room, Kunsel noticed Rude and Elena flanking him warily. "What's going on with the SOLDIER floor?" the red head asked.

"A bunch of the new recruits went crazy-" He stopped suddenly when he realized there was a fourth person behind him. He turned and saw a glowing-eyed, red-headed woman holding a hand out to him. "What is _she_ doing here!?"

"Honestly, it's not like I'm a leper…" she muttered.

"Circumstances have made for strange bedfellows," Rufus answered from across the room.

A sound of disgust left Reno's mouth, "Ugh, please don't use such terms about my sister."

The gold light behind the SOLDIER's visor was suddenly more visible, "Your what!?"

"He's clear," Ralena said, loud enough to be sure that Rufus could hear.

"You're certain?" Rufus asked.

She tilted her head and looked slightly up in a dramatically thoughtful pose, "Ninety percent."

Rufus almost sighed in frustration, but just pushed a button on his desk, the door closed and the mechanical bars moved back into place. "Clear for what?" Kunsel asked, "What are you checking for?"

Before he could be answered the glass from the east wall burst inward and sliding across the floor like an ocean wave. The people in the lounge section on the opposite side screamed in surprise and Tseng moved to stand between Rufus and the balcony.

"Finally!" Reno said as the Turks and Kunsel moved up to the window. "We've been presented with an ass to kick!"

"Because the three in our office weren't enough?" Elena asked under her breath.

A pair of red heels and the edges of a red dress came into view from above. "Mr. President," Scarlet purred as she landed on the balcony, one blonde colored wing flapping lazily and a bizarre pair of glowing guns in her hands, "I'm here for my severance package."

*******

He heard the footsteps approaching, rapid, heavy, booted footsteps on the metal stairs, Hojo didn't care to let it distract him. Someone, likely Tuesti, kept trying to re-route power away from the cannons, fortunately the man was busy with everything else going on under his purview that Hojo was able to consistently gain ground. He may have sent guards up as well, but Hojo was certain that his specimens could handle such mundane measures.

He heard a guttural sound of alarm and injury as one of his lab specimens on the stairs below was injured,

"Hojo! Stop what you're doing!"

Hojo gave a brief glance over his shoulder to see who had come up over the stairs. "Oh… it's you." Hojo said with a measure of distaste. The "failed" clone. The specimens on the platform moved to guard Hojo while the failed clone's companions continued to come up the stairs after him. Hojo turned back to the console. "I don't have time for you right now, come back later." He both loathed and was proud of the clone's existence. Annoyed at his past self for thinking him a failure when he was the only one to continue living and survive. Thought a failure because his body did not react the same, because his hair did not turn silver or his eyes green. Because all readings indicated he had seemed to turn into a normal SOLDIER rather than another Sephiroth.

"Are fucking you insane!?" shouted another man, this one with a spear, "If you keep this up you'll be killed too!"

Hojo chuckled to himself. Did it really matter? Sephiroth needed this, the energy… or was it the destruction? The original purpose was muddled in his brain. Regardless he knew what he was doing, even if the why escaped him at the moment. When all was said and done, everything would be clear. The data would show as much. "Sephiroth needs this of me. It is the least I can do for my son."

"As if you ever thought of him as your son," a third voice said coldly.

Hojo's eyes narrowed. He turned around, hearing the sound the metal covered shoes on the metallic grating. "Valentine," he nearly growled as the man came into view, closing up his weapon from reloading it. "Why don't you go crawl back into the hole where I left you?"

Vincent shook his head slightly but didn't break eye contact. He lifted his claw to point a damning brass covered finger at him, "It's time to pay for your crimes, Hojo."

"There are no crimes in the pursuit of science."

Red eyes narrowed, "A number of your former subjects would disagree."

Hojo lifted his chin to look down his nose the other man, "You always were one of the unenlightened, boy. Now, Lucretia and Red III understood the importan-"

A gunshot rang through the air, rapidly followed by several more as Vincent aimed to unload his pistol into Hojo.

*******

"Forget about Hojo," Sephiroth said indifferently, turning away from Zack and Angeal.

"You're in your usual mood I see," Angeal said. The white-winged former SOLDIER had an idea about that. It seemed since he had been gone, the casual indifference Sephiroth had for the professor had begun to turn into a festering hatred. "I'll take the outside, Sephiroth the lower floors, Zack you go to the science department, Hojo is your responsibility."

"Right!" Zack nodded, hiding the joy he had at working with his mentor once again.

Angeal watched the younger SOLDIER go, when the footsteps faded away his old friend glared over his shoulder athim. "I thought you were against suffering." Sephiroth said.

"I am."

"Then why bother sending him to _protect Hojo_?"

They were subtle, but he could see the signs of his friend's anger. "I'm sorry, but that was for Zack. I can't protect Hojo, you won't, and he needs to feel like a hero. The world will need more than just you."

Sephiroth spun on his friend, "Do you have _any idea_ what Hojo is doing to her?" There was a strain in the silver haired man's voice that he rarely heard. As if he was trying not to scream.

"No," Angeal shook his head. "I don't, but then again, I am not _her_ hero."

As a response green, cat-like eyes, widened in surprised.

"I've been thinking about a lot since I've been gone. About monsters, and heroes, and dreams."

Sephiroth sneered, was he going to give him another one of his lectures now? "What of it?"

"Heroes need to have dreams, but sometimes, it's a heroes duty to help another's dreams come true."

The expression faded away, "Angeal…"

The man smirked, "Just a thought." A noise coming from outside the broken window caught his attention. "-_Hmph_\- Time to go." The one-winged former SOLDIER turned and hopped out the window, shortly followed by the sound of his blade cutting into a Genesis-copy.

Sephiroth turned on his heel, he'd think more about those words later. For now there were enemies to cut down.

*******

Upon closer inspection, Scarlet's transformation was more than just the wing, her skirt was not flowing fabric, but a strange, red membrane that flowed lazily with the movement of her hips like seaweed in the current. The same membrane flowed up her waist and clung to her form like the low cut dresses she usually wore. Her hair, now free of its normal style, floated behind her head as though she were in water.

"I know you have the Black Materia here," she said, "It wasn't in the containment unit I so lovingly had prepared for it." That explained the alarms in Weapons Development.

"Sorry to disappoint you, Scarlet," Rufus replied calmly. "But you are no longer welcome here." Kunsel had taken up the point position, Reno and Rude flanking him while the other two Turks stood in front of the president, their pistols out and ready. Ralena stayed near the door, trying to place herself at the edge of the range needed to cover all of them with barrier spells. With as outnumbered as Scarlet was, the monster hunter saw fit to stay closer to the hiding and trembling employees in case they needed protection.

"Then I guess this is my farewell party," Scarlet grinned. They expected she would fire her guns as the opening attack, instead, what they had thought were sleeves were red tendrils, in a moment they uncoiled from around her arms and lashed out like spears.

Kunsel and Reno easily dodged the attacks, but they were quickly followed up with energy blasts from her guns. They splashed against magic barriers and Reno shouted back, "Thanks, sis!"

There were a few rapid exchanges of blows between the three front men and Scarlet, who lacked the coordination to use her guns and tendrils at the same time. The blonde sent a glare to the redheaded woman in the back who was clearly maintaining defenses for the three men.

Suddenly, scarlet grinned.

With his enhanced hearing Kunsel picked up a high pitched whirr from the outside of the office door. "Everyone down!" he shouted.

The wall beside the door exploded inwards, eliciting another set of screams and shouts from the refugees now huddling in the far corner of the office and showering the nearest combatants with chunks of debris. When the dust settled, a large hole was in the wall with only a single support beam, blocking a portion of it. On the other side were two men wearing glowing harnesses that were fit with several materia flanking a third man who held a large gun that had a still glowing barrel in two hands.

Reno looked over with an expression of horrified shock. Only somewhat relived to see his sister on the opposite side of the door from the hole. Hands over her ears and wincing from her proximity to the attack. Green eyes caught his and she gave him a shaky thumbs up.

"Oh look, some of my staff have come to join the party," Scarlet grinned, "And they brought _party poppers_."

*******

Vincent wasn't sure what was worse, what he had hoped to do to the twisted professor, or what he had done to himself. While the special hollow points left satisfyingly large holes in the monstrosity, the fact that it barely resembled him made it feel less gratifying. As though he were putting down a rabid dog, instead of executing a psychopath.

When Cait Sith told them that Hojo had experimented on himself, Vincent never would have believed that it would be to such a degree that his physical change would be so drastic. Hojo's mouth gaped open, showing conical teeth and fangs, white against purple tinted skin. His hands were barely recognizable as such, and his legs seemed to be merging together. As they fought, his body continued to spasm and alter at unexpected intervals, making his movements erratic and affording him a measure of defense against Vincent's ranged attacks and some healing.

Vincent and Nanaki split in different directions to dodge a tentacle from one of the three specimen's that had been standing watch over Hojo. The jellyfish like creature had a sparking aura around limb which left a slight numb sensation.

Cloud was staring down a strange quadruped. The head was all the wrong shape and the limbs were disproportionate but the tendril off of the back of its head and the barriers it kept putting up were indicators of its origin as a guard hound.

The third creature seemed to be two ostrich like Epiolnis merged into one, with two heads and an extra set of wings. It launched itself at Cid, kicking at him with taloned feet. The captain was able to keep the creature at bay by virtue of his lance, but the creature flapped it's wings and droplets of Acid came off of it like a small cloud, forcing the man to retreat periodically.

In a move echoing the Jenova they fought in the crater, Hojo's right arm elongated and he struck at Cloud with his now Trident-like hand.

Vincent grit his teeth and fired at the striking limb, which took a bizarre path back to the professor's body. They had their hands full, each engaged with a beast and dodging periodic attacks from Hojo. Vincent found he was spending more time breaking the barriers put up by the hound. As before Chaos knocked against his consciousness with every bark of his gun. _Stay down_, Vincent said, his hatred for Hojo pushing back against the entity.

Cloud pulled back to stand beside Cid briefly and a glance went to Vincent. A few seconds later, after Cloud had managed to stagger the hound, as the gunman cast _Stop_ on the flying jelly-fish. Then all four members of Avalanche converged on the bird specimen with swift and brutal attacks. A tactic they had learned from the Turks back in Gongaga. By the time to two blondes withdrew back to their original target, the creature was still much to Hojo's chagrin.

Vincent smirked behind his collar, as he cast a fire spell to engulf the creatures remains. No matter how smart he was or how fast the transformation made him, Hojo was no tactician.

*******

After the other men from Weapons Development came into the room, Rufus had directed the refugees to hide in his oversized, executive bathroom, convinced that Scarlet had no interest in them. Aside from his long time, faithful secretary, Rufus wasn't sure if he actually cared about any of them, but he did not need to dissect his feelings about the matter right now.

That order had been the last thing he was able to hear himself say, not that he felt he had to do much. Tseng and Elena had opened fire on Scarlet, pinning her down behind a part of the outside wall while Kunsel engaged the two men in the harnesses and was doing his best to keep them occupied. Reno sought to disarm the man with the heavy gun leaving Rude and Ralena to take down the dozen or so people who had been out in the lobby earlier who had swarmed into the room like starving madmen. Meanwhile Rufus stood at the ready, taking potshots when they presented themselves.

After several take downs of her own, Rufus noted that woman with the glowing green eyes was moving in unarmed and didn't seem to do much other than put them in a hold long enough to get them to the ground. After that they seemed to just lie there, curled up in a ball. Whatever she was doing, she was keeping pace with Rude in taking them out. They were both working on their fourth targets when Reno managed to overload the gun that took out the wall.

The gun sparked with white and green lightning, and Reno pulled back quickly, but the man holding the weapon could not drop it fast enough. The resulting explosion was spectacular, but oddly contained, sending out small bolts that seemed to do little damage at the edges.

In the brief confusion that followed, Scarlet moved, firing towards the cluster of brain addled office workers, Rude and Walker. Rude barely dodged a shot, which burned off part of his tie as it trailed behind him and left a gaping hole in an unfortunate desk clerk. The other shot impacted on the red headed woman's barrier spell as she was standing from another curled up form. The protective magic shattered and she was thrown to the ground from the force that remained.

"BITCH!" Reno shouted, turning towards Scarlet, electricity flowing over his form for an instant. He was across the room in a blink, landing several successive strikes on the blonde before she backed up into the air out of his reach, one tendril wrapping around a wound while she waited for her guns to recharge.

A alarmed shout came from Kunsel and the foul-mouthed Turk found himself rolling with a punch from one of the harnessed combatants. Reno pulled himself up a good fifteen feet from where he had been struck, with the man closing in on him. A bolt of lightning struck his opponent from Ralena, causing him to stumble and giving Reno the chance to better aim his riposte. "Ral!" he called out, "Don't you have a summon? That would be handy right now!"

"I left it on my chocobo!" she yelled back, moving away from the mostly debilitated mob and trying to refresh barrier spells. "I wasn't gonna let ShinRa have it!"

Reno let out a breath of annoyance through his teeth, "'Course you did…" he muttered, as he maneuvered closer to Kunsel so they could watch each other's backs. There was a mad shuffle for a minute. The defenders were not outnumbered, but Scarlet's unpredictable shots split their focus and the men in the harnesses were clearly augmented to be nearly on par with Kunsel in terms of speed and strength. While ability had been granted to them, experience was not.

Once Ralena signaled to Rude that she could finish subduing the office workers, the bald man rushed to his partner's side. The combination of the two Turks working in concert put the man on the defensive for the first time since he showed up. This also opened up the opportunity for Kunsel to push back on the other one and the SOLDIER cut the man down in short order.

Seeing the tide beginning to turn, Scarlet's lip curled up and she lifted both pistols, aiming for Rufus. Tseng and Elena rushed in front of him, but at the last second Scarlet shifted her aim and shot two fully charged blasts at one of the support columns next to his desk. Marble and concrete burst outward, revealing a safe half hanging out of the other half that was still standing.

"Did you think I didn't know all of the secrets of this office?" she smirked, Her tendrils lashed out, extending far longer than they had yet, wrapping around the safe and yanking it out of the crumbling pillar.

"Stop her!" Rufus shouted, as he fired on the former department head. Tseng and Elena unloaded their clips. Lightning and Ice struck her from Ralena and Kunsel. Chunks of ice stuck to the woman and she almost fumbled the safe as she leapt off the balcony.

Rufus stared as the fleeing one winged form came into view again, flying away. "Reno! Rude! get the helo! We can't let her escape!"

"Sir!" the pair replied immediately. With only a brief glance to make sure that Kunsel could pick up the last of the employees from Weapons Development the two men sped up to the helipad above.

*******

Cid leapt forward and pinned the floating, jellyfish-like creature to the ground. As the stunning tentacles reached up for him, Red XIII came in and tore at the bell. It flailed violently and they pulled away, giving Cloud room to drop a fire spell on it.

The burning mass left only one creature beside Hojo.

Vincent felt a jolt from Chaos as he allowed himself to get struck in order to finish off the last of the specimens that were guarding Hojo. He never used to be so careless. The blame did not lie entirely with Chaos, even if Vincent was partly distracted by continually holding the entity back, his burning hatred for Hojo did a lot of that work for him. Being able to survive once fatal attacks had made him sloppy

He wasn't sure how long he could hold it back, _No_, he thought to the roiling blackness that pushed against his mind, _this is retribution that _I_ will deliver._ This was for Nanaki, fighting beside him now, for Aerith and her parents, for Tifa and Nibelheim and the Sephiroth that may have been. For Cloud, who had lost years of his life and some of his identity. The list could have gone on and on.

This was for himself.

This was for Ralena and Lucrecia.

For the crying, green eyed girl.

For the distraught mother who never held her child.

_You cannot have his blood Chaos, that is mine to spill_. He unloaded again, and as he reloaded and dodged he felt a kind of chilling kinship with the primal creature within him, it somehow seemed satisfied with its host's desires. Eyes glowing solid crimson, Vincent felt black energy flow down his arm into the gun. He pulled the trigger and the bullet flew through the air, spiraling black smoke behind it. It struck the orb in the center of Hojo's body and exploded outward as the spirals of black smoke cut like blades.

"Holy Shit!" Cloud exclaimed, as brought his sword up to keep the shrapnel of bone and gore off of his face.

Vincent stared and then looked at his gun. Had he just done a limit break… without changing form?

As The creature's body collapsed in on itself, returning to an incomplete and surprisingly alive, approximation of Hojo. He stumbled backwards, coughing up strangely colored blood. "One… more surprise, Valen.." he titled and fell over the railing.

His body sluggish from channeling Chaos' power, Vincent rushed to the edge where Hojo had fallen. He cursed as his blurred vision failed to find the scientist's body. Without so much as a word to Cloud he jumped over and down the side of the cannon controls as a helicopter flew overhead.

*******

It had taken a few minutes to get the helicopter going, but as injured and weighed down as she was, Scarlet's flight speed left much to be desired. The helicopter quickly caught up to her and contained the Turks, Rufus and Ralena. They had been forced to leave Kunsel behind as he had to hold the helipad so they could get a clean take off. A number of other infected tower workers had shown up to stop their pursuit. The SOLDIER was in no danger of dying but there were more than enough people to keep him busy, especially since the idealistic man was trying not to kill any of them.

At one point, Scarlet spun around, throwing the safe at the helicopter, but her range was far too short. As they approached the edge of the city, they had pulled up alongside her and Tseng and Elena prepared to try and shoot her out of the sky. Moments before they took the first shot, Reno shouted in alarm. A mass of flying creatures the size of eagles erupted from the threshold of the city and the wastes. Several shots were fired as Scarlet dove to meet the flock, quickly becoming obscured by sheer number of creatures.

The winged beasts flew up and surrounded and impacted on the helicopter. Tseng moved to slam the door shut, but a Harrier Hawk got part way in the passenger section and began thrashing around, its two foot long beak. Elena shot it point blank in the head, and they kicked it out as other creatures flew themselves towards them.

As the aircraft as it began to spin out of control, Ralena remembered the trick Vincent had pulled on their escape from the city. She closed her eyes and focused everything she had on putting a barrier on the lower portions of the aircraft.

*******

Vincent grit his teeth as he searched the area beneath the cannon platform they had fought on. He cursed himself for being too shocked by his limit break to just pull the trigger one more time. If only there wasn't all of this damn machinery in the way. Like many of the inner workings of the city, it was a mass of pipes, wires and walkways. It had been several minutes and he hadn't even found a bloody smear. Not far away Nanaki picked his footing among the larger pipes and beams, having joined the gunman in his search

He heard Cait Sith and Cloud talking in his ear through the comms, exchanging information on the current situation while they took a break. They had undoubtedly defeated Hojo, but Vincent wanted to make sure he was down for good. He would not be convinced of the man's death until he saw the corpse himself and set it ablaze.

Tifa and Barret joined the conversation, their group was already on the way to meet them. The detour to the cannon had cost them a lot of time, and it seemed the attack on the city was dying down. Vincent hoped that things would still be chaotic among the ShinRa long enough for them to succeed in their extraction.

"On the positive side," Cait Sith said after another couple of minutes, "You are closer to Ralena now."

Vincent paused in his search at the mention of her.

"What do ya mean?" Cid asked.

"I just heard she ended up in a chopper with the Turks. I just pinged it's locator, it's near the outside edge of Sector 6 and 7, and it's not moving."

Red eyes left the metal below and began sweeping the cityscape between him and the wastes outside the city, trying to discern if any of the smoke clouds they could see might be from a fallen aircraft. He listened intently to the directions that Cait Sith gave and then rushed down the platforms, Nanaki, Cloud and a grumbling Cid following behind.

*******

"-and I don't think I want you doin' all of this stuff, anyway." As Reno finished in a patently elder brother voice and crossed arms. Rude put a hand over his face and sighed. Elena looked as though she couldn't decide between feeling shocked or offended, even if the comment wasn't directed at her. Behind him, Tseng and Rufus were trying to get an E.T.A. on a pickup, the radio was damaged and the cell phones were having trouble getting through.

They had managed to land the helicopter upright, but it would not be able to fly again anytime soon. Ralena stood from where she had been sitting in the doorway of the downed aircraft, pulling off the suit jacket she wore with movements that spoke of her annoyance.

“You know what?" she said, tossing the jacket back into the chopper "Fight me.”

“What!?”

The woman walked up to her brother, pushing a finger into his chest. “If you don’t think I can handle myself, then fight me.”

"You're still worn out from your Mako bath…" he said, knowing that did not stop her from being an asset in the previous fight, even if it had mostly been magical support. "It wouldn't be fair, and I can't hit my little sister."

"Bull shit," she called him out. Punching him hard in the shoulder. She dropped her sword belt and stared him in the eye, “I dare you.”

He stared at her, then heard a cough from Rude, and started laughing. “Holy shit, when did you get so scrappy Sis?”

She crossed her arms over her chest in a stance of confidence and defiance. "I was an apprentice Monster Hunter for four years before joining Avalanche _and_ I destroyed a training room. Bring it."

"Alright," Reno said in a warning fashion, "Hand-to-hand, going for a pin."

"Careful," Rude said, "She almost took out Elena."

Reno cocked his head and grinned at his partner, "Well that's not that hard."

"Hey!"

*******

Avalanche's Blue team had caught with the red team, having commandeered a troop transport truck. About a block away from the location that Cait Sith had given them, they came to a stop at some debris in the road. Not long after they stopped, Vincent heard a shout, a voice he immediately recognized. Without a word Vincent bolted out of the back of the truck, leaving the others to squawk behind him in surprise.

Coming out from the alley he found himself across from a half empty parking lot. Just beyond the damaged helicopter he caught sight of her, unarmed, her clothes dirtied from combat, and fighting against the Turk, Reno.

He'd had enough, days of her in the possession of Hojo had caused him no end of nightmares. His sleep had suffered for it, and so too had his now non-existent patience. He stalked forward in the shadows of the alley, unnoticed by either of the combatants.

Reno kicked a leg out from under Ralena and she went down hard. Easily as fast as she was, Reno got her into a lock and pinned her to the ground before she could recover.

As a curse escaped her lips. Vincent's eyes narrowed and he raised his gun.

*******

As Ralena's chest hit the asphalt, the breath was forced from her lungs. Before she managed to push herself up, Reno was on her back and pinning her arms and legs down. "Dammit!" She cursed, she'd really thought she had a chance at beating him. But her experience in bare-handed fighting just wasn't good enough.

A gunshot rang out and her heart felt like it stopped in the instant before she heard the bullet ricochet off of the ground.

Cursing, Reno released her from the pin, lay down on top of her and then rolled the both of them over to the cover behind a nearby car. She heard the other Turks take up defensive positions behind the helicopter as she opened up her senses. Were there more Jenova troops?

She sensed Vincent a moment before he spoke and the bubble of joy that rose in her chest was popped. "Let her go, Reno."

Ralena's eyes went wide. Holy shit, he was _furious_.

“Vincent, it's OK!" she yelled, coming out from behind cover, her arms held out in front of her in a placating gesture. "We were sparring!" At the sight of her, red eyes dimmed, but he didn't lower his weapon, tracking Reno as he strolled around behind her.

"Damn, we can't even have a little bonding time without getting shot at." Reno grinned, "You're friends are as bad as me."

A wave of projected calm with an underlaying fear settled over him, he took his eyes off the Turk and looked at her. He didn't remember her looking that afraid since she had first faced Ulster. Looking back and forth between them he quickly realized why, cautiously he holstered his gun.

Ralena let out a sigh of relief. This was hardly how she had pictured their reunion going. The realistic part of her did expect it to be in the middle of a fight. But now it didn't seem appropriate to run over and kiss him given that he just shot at her brother.

The other Turks moved around behind them, forming a line as Avalanche came up and did the same beside Vincent. A few surprised noises came from the rag tag group as they recognized the supposedly dead Tseng standing among them.

"Are we fighting?" Reno asked casually. Ralena cast alarmed glances between the two groups.

"I think at this point it would be pointless." Rufus' voice came from behind the Turks, Tseng and Rude made room for him to step through. "I think we can all agree there are more pressing concerns."

"Such as?"

"A Jenova-infected Scarlet managed to get the Black Materia," Tseng provided, "They took down our chopper when we gave chase."

"Really?" Cloud smirked, "Couldn't keep it for even a week?"

Rufus gave the other blonde a dispassionate look, "How would you have fared if he such forces against you?"

"It's more important to stop her," Tseng said, cutting off Cloud's retort. "Sephiroth's troops disabled or destroyed most of our aircraft. Those that are flight capable are stuck behind bay doors that are blocked with debris. Can the Highwind go after her? Scarlet can't be flying that fast."

"I tried to call her in on the way out here." Cid said, "Once they hit the perimeter of Midgar they took some damage from flyin' beasts and were forced to land outside a' Sector 2."

"What about the Junon airfield?" Tifa asked, "Can't you send something from there?"

Tseng shook his head, "Reports have come in that it has been sabotaged as well."

"Cid, how much time would it take to repair the Highwind?" Cloud asked, "We can't let her get to Sephiroth with the Black Materia."

The Captain shrugged, "It's hard to get through on the radio right now, I won't know fer sure 'til I get there."

Rufus turned to one of his own, "Rude, commandeer a vehicle and get the captain to his airship ASAP, see to it that he gets whatever parts he needs to repair it. In the mean time we'll have our own clear what bays we can. Whoever can get in the air first needs to give chase."

Cloud felt his hackles rise as the other blonde gave orders that affected _his_ people without so much as a glance at him in acknowledgement. Nanaki, glanced up at their leader, instinctually recognizing the posturing of a challenged alpha. His ears bent back, the intelligent part of him hoping for a peaceful resolution, but the animal part itching for another fight.

"We may not be able to stop her," Vincent said, "Sephiroth clearly planned for multiple contingencies." He was talking to everyone, but his crimson eyes were firmly set upon Ralena, who was still standing in the other line, Reno had stepped slightly in front of her earlier, stopping her from joining her comrades. She was mostly watching him as well, small waves of impatient joy reached him. Along with his own relief at finding her alive and well, it soothed his own anticipation.

"There's also been a lot of damage to the city," Cait Sith said, hoping to dispel the budding conflict, "I'm trying to get rescue operations going, but half of the communications are knocked out- I said to get channel 2 up first, it's the least damaged!" The last part was clearly directed at someone else.

"I think it's safe to say that the cat is out of the bag." Rufus said, with a barely hidden smirk before turning to Cloud, "Would you care to help us with Evac? Then we can discuss… alliances."

"Are you fucking kidding me?" Cloud asked darkly. Tifa started at Cloud's tone, she had never heard him speak in such a manner about anyone except Sephiroth.

"I am not." Rufus answered with a diplomats calm, but his follow up comment was dripping with scorn, "Were you under the impression that I do not live on this planet?"

"Why should we trust you!?" Cloud accused, "You were going to execute us!"

"Don't be ridiculous," the president replied, "You were much more useful to me alive."

"'_Ridiculous_!?'" Barret shouted, "There were news crews and Tifa was in the gas chamber!"

Rufus sighed, "With knock out gas…"

"What!?"

"Why didn't you say…" Tifa started.

Reno scoffed as she trailed off, "And trust that you can act? Yeah, right."

Rufus turned back to the cat, continuing without giving Avalanche the time to respond. "Reeve, where do you need us?"

The mog ambled in between the two groups and Cait Sith cast a worried glance at a very irritated looking Cloud, and began to layout the situation. The groups formed a circle around a projection that Cait Sith cast upon the ground. Ralena moved around next to Vincent, standing close enough that her shoulder touched his. Reno followed her and stood on her other side, casting a brief, unseen glare at the gunman. Making Cait Sith and the redheads the barriers between the two groups. Cait Sith laid out the most damaged of the inhabited areas, triage locations, and what resources he had going where.

"Isn't this technically Heidegger's job?" Elena asked after a minute.

"Fortunately, he's in the infirmary, leaving me to do the job properly," Cait said.

"If we're lucky he won't survive..." Reno muttered.

"Mr. President," Cait Sith said, "I'd like you to get through to the Military and tell them to cooperate with us for a change. M&C is also getting an announcement ready, we'll need you back at the tower for that."

"Tseng, Elena, you'll be with me," Rufus said, "Find us a functioning car once we break."

Cait Sith nodded, then looked across the circle, "Ralena, would you be alright if I to send to find people who might be trapped? You could sense them right?" Reno gave her a questioning look, she mentally added it to the list of things she had to explain to her brother. Rufus raised a brow at both the robot and the redhead, they had been holding out on him…

Ralena nodded, seeing that Cait Sith was indicating Sector 6. "If most of the other people are clear, I should be able to handle it."

"I'm going with you," Reno and Vincent said in near unison.

"Right then," Cait said with a tone of resignation, he had been expecting it anyway. "I guess that takes care of your escort. Nanaki, I'd like to put you on search as well, just in a different area," the feline nodded. "Yuffie, you go with him." He knew that she had been trying to use the _Sense _materia to try and detect living things.

Once initial assignments were handed out, Tseng addressed the former Turk, "Valentine, you are a marksman, correct?"

The red clad man nodded, eyes narrowing suspiciously.

"If we get a bird in the air, from any side, I'd like you on it to help shoot down Scarlet."

Vincent's eyes narrowed and he resisted the urge to put a possessive arm around Ralena. Such public displays were normally easy for him to keep down, but a possessive and protective part of him was very near the surface. "Do you not have your own snipers?"

"We'd still have to find them in this chaos, we know where you are." Cait Sith placated.

"In addition, our best snipers are SOLDIERs," The head Turk elaborated. "Given that Jenova cells were a key factor in this attack, I am hesitant to trust them."

Cait Sith gave a sigh and looked at the two redheads and Vincent, "I hate to do it, but whenever we get something flying the three of you can just all go up. I'm too busy to fight…" he gestured wildly at the trio across from him, clearly not wanting to take the effort to describe it, "all of that."

"All of what?" Tifa asked, only now realizing how Reno had followed his fellow redhead.

Yuffie's eyes went wide, "Omigod! Are you and Reno a thing now? That was fast…"

Rude seemed to take much amusement at the look of disgust and horror on his partner's face, while Elena was blatantly laughing out loud at the idea. Ralena's look of absolute shock was beside a condescending glare from Vincent.

"Shiva, no!" the empath said when she shook off her surprise at Yuffie's conclusion.

"She's my sister, you twit!" Reno sputtered.

Understanding dawned on Yuffie, "oooohhhhh, that makes more sen- NANI!?" With the exception of Red XIII and Cait Sith the expressions on the other members of Avalanche proved that the implications sunk in far quicker for them than the Shinobi.

"Surely the resemblance is obvious," Nanaki muttered now that he was looking at the two side by side.

"As rare a sight as an uncomfortable Reno is," Rufus said, suppressing a grin, "Shall we move back to the topic at hand?"

*******

Once they had split off from the main group Vincent had taken up a position on Ralena's right side as Reno was on the opposite. As the others fell out of sight he reached forward and gently took her hand in his gauntlet. She slowed to a little to fall behind the Turk and smiled back at him. The warmth of her hand seeped through his glove as she attempted to squeeze it.

It wasn't enough.

The moment the opportunity presented itself he suddenly pulled her out of view, down a narrow alley and into a tight hug. He buried his face in her hair, taking in her scent, redolent of the aftermath of combat. Smoke and dust and sweat with a hint of blood. In the moment he couldn't imagine a more appropriate perfume for her. He clutched Ralena to himself as her arms went around him and she pressed her face into his neck. The warmth of her skin against his calmed his nerves, as if he hadn't believed she was safe before that contact.

She squeezed Vincent in return, even when the raised portions of his gauntlet dug into her back, she didn't care. She was back with him, holding him, smelling him, feeling him. How she had missed him. The faint smell of gunpowder clung to him, his hair caressed her face and she wallowed in it. She wanted to let everything go and just let him hold her up. To have him wash away the week Hojo had her, to banish the memory of what had been done to her.

They stood like that for a while, in the shadow of destruction, dirty and bruised from combat and stupidly content. Relief flowed through them along with a hesitant joy. Danger was still in their future, and they couldn't forget that.

"I was worried," he whispered hoarsely. There was no need to ask why, or how much, no need to share the horrors that he had imagined in the scant amount of sleep he had while she was gone.

For a moment she just nodded mutely against his neck. "I knew you'd come," she whispered back. It didn't matter that he was not the one who got her out.

It was the same words the dream version of her had said before he put a bullet in her head. He squeezed her tighter, praying it wasn't an omen. "Are you…"

"I'm ok," she replied quietly. "It was mostly just the normal tests."

He pulled back enough to look into her face, "Mostly?" he asked. There was no trace of his normal stoic demeanor, concern was written plainly in his expression. He moved hair out of her face with his right hand and seemed to be looking for signs of injury. Underlying fear and uncertainty bubbled up between the two of them.

She turned her head into his hand, indulging in the feel of him touching her skin. If he had done that before the attack, he would have seen signs of the removed sensors. But healing cast during the fight with Scarlet had destroyed that evidence. "I'll fill you in later. But for now I'm good. I promise… Did you get him?"

She felt his shoulders twitch, "If he was still human, I would say yes…" guilt rolled off of Vincent and she brushed her cheek against his.

"It's ok," she whispered, "It doesn't matter right now."

"Hey," Reno's voice came from the street, they could see his shoulder peeking around the corner, where he leaned against the wall. "Hurry it up, we've got a job to do." He wasn't being impatient or cruel, just reminding them about the job.

"He's right," Vincent almost sighed.

She smiled, "I might need you to help me focus, is that ok?"

He leaned in and they shared a kiss far too short to make up for the time they had apart, "Always."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Author's note:  
Ral: Does the idea of me in *any* sexual context weird you out?  
Reno: Yes, and please don't say that word.  
Elena: aww, Reno’s like a real big brother. That's kinda cute.  
Ral: SEX!  
Reno: *covers his ears* Ahhh!


	38. Aftermath

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Announcement; Search hound; Survival; Chaos-Huntress; The Morning Report; Job Offer; Office Space; No one Just Leaves

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ok, so this took me longer than I thought, sorry guys, but such is life right now :(

While many parts of Midgar were whole and well, there were few areas in the upper plates where one could not see smoke. There were still fewer places, even below, that it could not be smelled. The rumbles of explosions had mostly died away, though the occasional staccato of gunfire would sound off as riled up monsters were put down.

For the most part citizens remained in their homes, unsure and afraid of what was happening and fearful of any enemy that would so boldly attack what they perceived as the center of civilization.

Roughly twenty minutes after the attack, it was officially announced as "repelled" and any working screen that was on, whether it be in home or bordering the streets, all switched to show the image of Rufus Shinra. His appearance nearly pristine save for some of the damage done to his coat that was still visible. Undoubtedly a conscious decision from Public Relations to show that he had been affected, but was ultimately intact and resolute. He maintained an expression of resolute calm that held a touch of justifiable outrage.

"People of Midgar," he said in a manner that matched his appearance, "this is Rufus Shinra. With the joint efforts of ShinRa Security forces and a few specialized mercenary groups an attack from a previously unknown terrorist organization has been repelled. More information on this will become available as we investigate. For now rescue operations are underway in the damaged areas of the city. If you are in a safe location, do your best to remain in place, more people in the street will only slow down rescue efforts…"

"Can't help but notice he didn't mention us by name..." Barret muttered as the announcement continued in the background. They were listening to the message through broadcast speakers from where they were helping in the Sector 5 slums. A small portion of the upper plate had fallen through, and they had the feeling that Cait Sith had very intentionally sent them here.

"Just be glad he's sharing the credit at all," Tifa sighed, passing over another piece of rubble. They were unblocking one of the large drainage pipes that kids and teens of the slums frequently hung out in. The summoned Titan had already moved most of the larger pieces, and thanks to Barret's direction, who had years of experience working in coal mines, the kids that were hiding out were in no danger from further collapse.

Cloud said nothing, but the current situation had him seething. He did not begrudge their current role in search and rescue, but Rufus had seemed to take control and brush him aside with barely a care. The only thing that made it tolerable was the fact that Cait Sith had _asked_ them to help.

He was also certain that the decision to send them to the Sector 5 slums was intentional on Cait Sith's part. It made Cloud uneasy about how much the spy could have manipulated them early on. Then he remembered how Vincent, with a few well-chosen words, would always play Devil's Advocate against Cait Sith. Forcing Cloud and the others to think just a little bit beyond what the robot had suggested. Sometimes Cait's suggestions were still followed, but the questioning was apparently a habit the Turk instilled in the team. He now wondered what kind of subtle spy-games had been going on in plain sight.

*******

Vincent cataloged the damage he saw to the city as they had moved to their target location. In most areas the damage appeared light, if it was present at all. From what he could tell there were clearly epicenters of damage and it looked as though Cait Sith had already arranged for emergency services to get the most easily accessed people out already.

As Ralena walked around damaged buildings, the gunman hovered near her like a bodyguard, eyeing their troop escort warily. Vincent saw the logic in it, so he did not protest when they met up with two squads. Once Ralena located people trapped in the rubble, the troopers would take over to dig them out, putting her skills to more efficient use as she hunted for the presence of the next buried victim in need of rescue.

It also served to give the ShinRa extra eyes upon them.

"So…" Reno said casually to Vincent as Ralena moved over to another section of a damaged building. "You were here to take her back?"

Crimson eyes slid sideways to the Turk beside him. Vincent gave only a slight nod in response. Reno had been pestering him almost since they arrived onsite. Hoping to glean some information for an as yet undetermined purpose. For the most part, Vincent refused to answer, with the occasional nod or shake of his head if he felt it was an obvious question. Ralena was not being bothered because they kept a small distance from her so that she could better focus and Reno was not loud enough for her to really hear him.

"How long have you two…"

As the Turk let the question hang in the air Vincent narrowed his eyes. The gunman bit back the first response that came to mind, as far as he was concerned it was not his business. If Ralena, his own sister, had not told him, Vincent would not tell him either. As it was Vincent's thoughts were consumed with too many other important things as it was. The lack of a confirmed kill of Hojo, keeping track of the ShinRa people all around them and Ralena's physical state.

"You gonna answer the question?" the Turk prodded again.

Fine, he would give Reno something to choke on so that he could go unbothered for a few minutes. "We were on a date when you almost caught us on the street in Junon."

As predicted, realization came quickly to the Turk who started to sputter and curse. Vincent took the opportunity to distance himself from the man and approach the empath. He reached out to assist her from a collapsed wall section she was climbing back down. She was pushing herself too hard, he told her as much. He could see the worry and fear radiating from her green eyes. The feeling of being trapped, of losing hope of rescue was bleeding into her far too quickly, but the spikes of hope she ignited were enough to rejuvenate her determination, so she pressed on.

"Let us help you," Vincent said.

Thinking he meant himself and Reno she shook her head. "I don't know how you are going to find anyone," she said, "It's not like you can sense them. If people were calling out you might be able to hear them but…"

"I can't," Vincent replied and held out his hand to her, "Ulster can." The beast could scent like a wolf, and was smart enough to be directed. More importantly, it would listen to her and protect her as fiercely as he would.

She stared at him for several seconds, and then looked back and forth between him and her brother who now just looked on confused. "Are you sure you want to do that?" If they did this now, ShinRa would know, and Vincent had been firmly set on letting them know as little as possible since the beginning.

Vincent convinced himself that the overt nature of his limit break only made it a matter of time before they found out, assuming there was not already footage of it from them fighting their way through the maintenance tunnels. "Yes." The more people they found, the more people who knew help was coming, the better her condition would be. Vincent smirked, barely noticeable to anyone unfamiliar with him, "But I need your help to bring the right one out."

Reno sidled up to the pair, "Whaaaat are you two talking about?"

Ralena looked at Vincent questioningly and he nodded. A thankful smile decorated the woman's lips. She just glanced at her brother and said, "You'll see." She moved both hands to the red clad man's face and closed her eyes. After several seconds, the man's lips parted, showing fangs and grimacing. Reno's stance immediately shifted, alarmed that harm could befall his sister, but as the man's form collapsed onto all fours and shifted he was too stunned to act. In seconds, Valentine had become a mini-behemoth like creature and Reno could only stare wide-eyed at him. Even more disconcerting was when Ralena kneeled down in front of the beast and began petting him, talking as if he were a faithful pet and told him how much she missed him.

Reno stared at his sister and the purple beast beside her. "What did you do to him!?"

She turned to him, hands still buried in the red mane of the creature. Her eyes lost their glow, and she spoke with a tired and annoyed tone. Reno's burning curiosity was so loud it would make it impossible for her to sense anyone else if she told him nothing. "Short Version: Hojo is an asshole, and Vincent has super powers."

Reno shared a look with the sergeant that lead the troops who were helping dig out the people she located. At least the bewildered expression he saw there confirmed that he wasn't the only one who thought this was strange. "Riiight…" Maybe later Reno would ask Elena exactly _what_ she found in Nibelheim about Valentine.

*******

He saw now what had happened, through the Jenova cells Sephiroth had reached into his mind and given a command. Not just a command, but a resolve and the desire to see it through. For that time, he had felt as though he had a pure and singular purpose. Sephiroth's will had become his own, but it had not subsumed his thoughts. The method he chose to act on was his own.

Hojo dragged his broken body up to where he could see out into the street and remain hidden. He had a significant cavity in his torso, but there was no hemorrhaging or bleeding. He could almost feel his body and organs trying to stitch themselves back together. It was fascinating.

Too bad he did not have a method of recording the experience.

He had survived the fall by virtue of the connection that was between those changed by the raw, unaltered cells that Hojo had been using recently. A smaller, flying specimen helped to slow his descent and absorbed the impact of his landing. He had left the broken form as soon as he was able. Since then he had made his way down the rubble into the neighboring sector's slums.

Right now, Hojo was craving sustenance. From his knowledge of biology, both mundane and altered, he knew what he needed. His body needed protein, arginine, niacin and arachidonic acids. He needed it to heal. The massive hole in his torso was not healing despite his regeneration, even though damage caused by the other weapons was long gone. 

The wound from Valentine's black bullet burned at the edges, undoubtedly some form of toxin to his system.

He sensed something nearby, another who had Jenova cells in them. A deformed hand moved aside a bit of wreckage to see what it was. One of the many other people that had been taken over by Sephiroth.

The woman stood still, staring listlessly at nothing. Hojo sneered, what a weak minded individual. He would admit, having had something else put such a potent sense of purpose into you only to take it away was a jarring experience, but to allow yourself to become so hollow was asinine.

Behind the woman, from another alley, a shape lurked. It was an opisthopora class monster, a worm-like creature with four insectile legs and a maw full of needle like teeth. It had likely been roused from all of the violent action that had occurred within the city. When Hojo spied the creature, the woman looked up, as though sensing it on a delay. Expressionless she turned to the wormlike creature with its mass of long thing teeth. The creature brought itself up over the woman, examining this potential prey that did not run. Hojo's body reacted quickly, some hive-like instinct and the need for sustenance overriding his thoughts. He leapt forward, jaw distending and he fell upon the creature.

Hot blood filled his mouth, spiced with the needs of his body he devoured it in short order. His jaw warped to crunch through its chitinous legs. The instincts of his damaged body did not allow him to stop until he had eaten all but the creature's teeth.

He took several deep breaths and gathered his thoughts again, irritated at his loss of control. He was a man of science. The mind was his domain and the fact that his body, alien as it was, acted without his conscious effort greatly annoyed him.

He looked up at the woman who met his eyes but still had no expression. Despite having nearly been killed, despite Hojo's misshapen body being coated in blood. He could sense that she had no longer held a will of her own.

But he did.

His lungs damaged, Hojo could not easily talk, but he did not need to. His mind reached for a sliver of connection through the cells they shared

_Assist me_.

The woman perked up, and the corner of her mouth turned up oddly, as if a puppeteer pulled a string in an attempt to make her smile.

He was not so helpless after all.

Excellent.

*******

The woman stalked silently through the Sleeping Forest. Her form hidden under a hooded leather cloak from beneath which primitive, animal skin boots could be seen. A bow was slung over her back and the familiar shape of a lunar harp could be seen under her cloak as she moved. The soft glow of the trees made her easy to spot, but she was more concerned with not being heard. She was sure of her destination, not bothering to track. That much Vincent could tell.

He watched as she came upon a cave entrance under a massive tree. Whatever lived in here could easily be the same size as a Nibel Dragon. She crept inside, drawing a short bladed weapon, similar to a spatha.

As she moved inside his view shifted, as if watching her from behind the roots and rocks that lined the passage into the underground. Silently, she moved forward, absolutely positive of her path, even her breath and heartbeat seemed to be muted. Somehow he knew that she also had no scent. It was blocked by magic. It was as though some bit of moonlight managed to shine only on her form and reached no other part of this world.

She came upon a smaller tunnel, where visible edges of a pile of grasses and furs indicated a nest. She crept up beside the opening, sword at the ready she launched herself towards the space. Ready to the slaughter the creature sleeping within it. She stopped suddenly, and now Vincent too could see what she did.

The nest was empty.

"Huntress..." A deep voice echoed in the chamber and the woman turned. He could feel the voice rumble in his chest. For the first time, Vincent saw her face as Ralena's green eyes scanned the shadows around her.

Despite the change in role and identity it seemed his dreams still had a limited cast of actors.

Vincent felt himself prowling around her in the dark, unseen by the woman. His breath was heavy in his chest and echoed around her as he moved. Hands and feet moved surely and silently in the dark. He could feel the ground give slightly under his feet and could smell the earth around him. He knew every rock, every root and every pebble here. This was his lair, his territory, a place gifted to him from the mother. He knew how the _air_ was supposed to move in here. And this woman thought she could just come in here an slaughter him. 

"Show yourself creature!" she shouted. Now that the element of surprise was clearly gone she dropped her magics and her scent flooded his nostrils, a mortal woman cloaked in the smell of the wild woods outside and free of the acrid taint he was here to destroy. "I'll not let you hunt my people any longer!"

Foolish thing, she should be thanking him. He was saving her the trouble.

His lips pulled back into a feral grin, "It's time I rewarded you for your audacity."

Vincent's eyes snapped open the instant the woman was thrown to the ground, bitter determination blazing in her eyes, and swinging her blade towards his throat. He took a moment to stare about his surroundings, the fog of sleep and the strangeness of his dream making him forget where he was.

Of course, his bunk on the Highwind… but something was different.

There was a warm, unfamiliar weight leaned against his right side and his left was against the wall. It felt like a heavy warm pillow. Like him, it smelled of partially washed off dust and smoke. The bed wasn't that big why would he…

Ralena made a small sigh in her sleep, and it came back to him.

About two hours into their search and rescue efforts, the two of them and Reno had been picked up in a helicopter to chase down Scarlet. The flight out after the blonde woman had been a bust. As they approached the area around Icicle Inn, a mass of flying creatures took off from the forest to block their path. Remembering how well a helicopter dealt with that the last time, Reno made the call to avoid the flock and they quickly realized there would be no getting around them in their solo craft. The creatures followed the craft's movements, leaving them no room to pass.

After the fighting, the chase, and the rescue effort in the city, everyone in Avalanche did little more than make their way back to the Highwind to shower and fall into their beds. Blushing, Ralena had come to Vincent's door and asked to sleep beside him. He hadn't been sure what sort of comfort she had been hoping for, but he was happy to accommodate her. She had fallen asleep almost immediately, no doubt her exhaustion was accumulated from more than just the day's events. She could be stubborn like himself that way, she would run herself into the ground if they let her.

He now wished that Cloud had taken up Rufus on his offer of beds in Sector 5. Vincent couldn't blame Cloud for not trusting the man. Their leader just coldly replied that if there were extra beds, then there were plenty of people in Midgar who could use them.

Vincent shifted, moving onto his side and draping his right arm around her, pulling her away from the edge of the bunk and against his chest.

The words she spoke came back to him again. _Mostly_ the usual tests. They hadn’t gotten the chance to talk about it yet, but he had noticed the underlying fear in her words. She said she was ok, _for now_.

"Mostly", "for now," Those four, tiny, qualifying syllables filled him with dread.

All that and Hojo had gotten away.

Adjusting, he pulled the blanket to better cover her then slipped his right arm under hers and around her waist. He was careful not to move so quickly that he would disturb her. The great dragon Bahamut probably couldn't wake her right now, but he dare not risk it, she needed what rest she could get.

Something struck him as odd and he frowned.

She was wearing a shirt with sleeves.

It wasn't so cold in the Highwind that her usual sleeping tank top would be inappropriate. It seemed like such a minor thing, but he felt like it meant something. Unless she was sleeping in her clothes on the road, she had always slept in the sleeveless top and pajama pants since she got it when they fled through Kalm. The shirt was also buttoned up to the point that he could barely see her collar bone. It felt like she was hiding something.

He buried his face in her hair and inhaled. As if he could find the source of their dread and banish it with the act. He felt an ache in his chest that she would hide something from him.

Or maybe she was just hiding.

He reminded himself that the search and rescue had taken priority and after that, exhaustion had won out. She wasn't hiding anything, he told himself.

_"Just because you haven't told me yet, doesn't make it a secret." _

He wanted nothing more than to do away with the source of her pain. Again, he cursed himself for letting Hojo get away, for not being able to confirm the kill. He pulled her in as close as he could, bringing her back against his chest. Feeling her warmth, hearing her breath, her heartbeat.

He moved his hand forward once more, passed the sleeve and placed the back of his hand in her palm. Feeling the subtle sensations of emotion from the skin to skin contact brought him some small measure of peace and again he closed his eyes.

Vincent dozed, slipping in and out of sleep for a little while after that, he knew the moment she woke up. The subtle sensations of Ralena's sleeping state slowly changed to a more recognizable lazy contentment that emanated from the hand resting on his arm around her waist. It was soon joined by confusion and unease. He tightened his arm around her as well as his leg that had found itself around one of hers. Sudden panic flowed from her and she sucked in a breath as her body tensed against his. Her hand moved to grab his arm and paused as confusion bled into him again.

"You're safe," Vincent reminded her quietly, "It's me." At the same time he realize the taboo he had committed and withdrew his arm from around her waist. She turned her head back and met Vincent's crimson eyes, which held a mix of sympathy and guilt. "Sorry," he whispered, "He got away."

She shook her head, the apology was unnecessary, "It's okay." As she turned to fully face him and he moved his arm around her back, helping to secure her on the narrow bunk.

Concern tinted his eyes, a gloved hand came from under the pillow and rested on her head. "Are _you_ ok?"

She turned into him, burying her face against his chest. "I don't know… Do I have to think about it now?"

He frowned and kissed the top of her head. "I suppose not. But we shouldn't put it off for too long."

She nodded and nuzzled in under his neck. "There's more work to do today…" more than enough to bury herself in. "Tomorrow?"

He pulled back, and tucked a hand under her chin, so that he could tilt up her head and look into her eyes. "Promise?"

The concern he felt was palpable to her. She forgot that not knowing hurt him too. Not that she had much to tell him, except for- She cut off the thought and nodded to him, "I promise… but you may have to keep me honest," she smiled weakly.

He smiled lightly back and they leaned into each other. "Always," he whispered, his lips brushing hers as he spoke the word. Her eyes fluttered shut as he kissed her gently.

She leaned into him, but not with any real force. She was full of timid desire, desperate to be to be touched softly, to be held and not feel pain. She was not a delicate creature, but right now she wanted to be treated like one.

He laid several light kisses on her mouth and cheeks as his hand cradled her face and neck. She tried to wrap herself in the sensation of it, in the feeling of his skin on hers. The tender love and comfort she could sense in his touch. Between them her, hands rested against his chest and she discovered that his heartbeat was slow, easily half that of her own at rest. This relaxed her further, another strange little fact about Vincent that only she knew. A shuddering sigh of relief exited her mouth as he laid delicate kisses on her closed eyes.

She was on the verge of tears, even if she didn't know why. Finally, _finally_ she was safe again. Finally she felt the pure and honest sensation of someone loving her. There was no duty, no past, no future, no outside world.

She turned her head up and reached to touch his cheek. He watched her as she spent some time silently memorizing his face, as if she ever could have forgotten it. Her fingers brushed his mouth. He smiled faintly as one digit traced, feather-like, up the bridge of his nose then to one of the scars on his forehead. Her hand traveled across his brow to move some of his messy hair from his face, tucking it behind his ear. Her fingers made their way down to his jaw line and he gently cupped her hand in his, turning into it and kissing her palm and the tender inside of her wrist.

Relief and contentment washed through Ralena and they came together again in another delicate kiss. When they separated she nuzzled her head under his, enjoying the feel of his skin against her face.

For now, they could let the rest of the world go away.

***

Cloud walked down the hall, knocking on the doors of the bunk rooms for Avalanche, they had agreed to help with search and rescue operations again in Midgar today, which meant being at a quick planning meeting to get assignments. Cloud was still too wary of Rufus to agree to meet them in the Tower. Fortunately the airship, which was _technically_ ShinRa property, was wired for video conferences.

For the most part, he only stopped at the rooms long enough to hear a response from the person in the room as confirmation that they were awake. Tifa was already up and joined him in the hall. The woman was still waiting for a response from Yuffie that wasn't an ask for "five more minutes" when Cloud approached Vincent's door. Before he could knock, it opened, revealing Ralena who paused mid-yawn and blushed slightly.

Cloud gave no notable reaction, "I'm making sure everyone is up, we got that meeting in 30."

"Yeah," she nodded and, still blushing, closed the door behind her and walked passed him and into her bunk across the hall to get changed.

Tifa stared at the door the redhead disappeared into. "When did _that_ happen?"

"After Junon," Cloud said, as if it was common knowledge.

"How did _you_ know?"

"I'm the leader, it's my job to notice these things."

Tifa was flabbergasted. She loved and respected Cloud, but he had always lacked a certain amount of emotional intelligence. She stared at him, "No, Cloud… you normally don't pick up on these kinds of things."

He shrugged and grinned at her, "This time I did."

*******

"We've been able to keep an eye on the crater barrier from a distance, thanks to its size," Tseng reported, "As far as we can tell it hasn't gone down since the attack."

"Injured or not, Scarlet must have gotten to him by now," Cloud said. There must be a hole in the barrier, a weak spot to get into. There were still monsters under his control swarming the glacier, making it impossible to approach.

"I don't get it…" Tifa mused, nibbling on one of her nails, "If he has it, why hasn't he summoned Meteor yet?"

"Shouldn't we be thankful then?" Reno remarked from off screen, Tseng cast over a glare for the comment.

"Maybe it just takes a long time," Yuffie piped up. "A summon like that can't possibly be called on like a normal one."

"That's all the more reason we need to try and strike before he gets the chance," Reeve on the screen and Cait Sith in the room said at the same time.

"A good idea", Tseng commented, "But, currently we are unable to breech the barrier."

"And that is where the Mako cannon comes in," Rufus said from his seat in front of the Turk.

"The cannon?"

"You didn't think I had it moved just for the WEAPONs did you? It is exceedingly difficult to aim."

"So how much longer till you get the thing up and running?" Cloud sneered.

"Longer than we'd like," Tseng answered, "In the meantime we have some tasks we'd like your team to work on.

As the meeting moved along to more mundane tasks, standing against the wall at the back of the Operations Room, Ralena felt Vincent's hand at her back moved up under her hair, pushing down the collar of her shirt. Warm fingertips touched the back of her neck, and she almost sighed in relief. Her shoulders relaxed as calm focus eased into her, overpowering Cloud's atmospheric irritation at Rufus as Tseng attempted to delegate tasks to Avalanche. 

"I would like Miss Walker to come into the tower," Rufus said, his on screen eyes uncannily finding the red head in the room.

"Why?" Cloud immediately asked. They had just gotten her back and he was loathe to send her back into the tower. "Wouldn't she be better on rescue?"

"We are testing our SOLDIERs for signs of the infection. But it is taking too long and the medical teams have their hands full with injuries. As she has demonstrated to me that she can tell the difference I'd like her assistance."

"Sorry, Ralena," Cait Sith said, reaching a placating paw up to pat her arm. A muted Reeve on the screen was also moving his lips. "If you're willing, it's more efficient for you to clear people trained in search and rescue than for to you do it by yourself."

She looked at the cat and swallowed, "If you think it's for the best, but I'm not going there alone…"

"Don't worry, I've already accounted for that."

*******

Kunsel walked into the largest conference room off of the SOLDIER lobby, it had become the de-facto command room, since a lot of the floor had been wrecked when a small portion of the on-site SOLDIERs unexpectedly went ballistic. "Potter, my guys have been cleared, where do they want us?" It was annoying, given everything going on, that Rufus had insisted that all SOLDIERs be tested for the new strain of Jenova cells before returning to duty.

He stopped short when he saw the dark suit in the room, Elena turned to meet his eye. "Apparently you have somewhere to be," the other S-1 said, "Can I put your men with Ziskey today? His men are still waiting on test results."

"Sure thing," Kunsel nodded, a little reluctantly. He eyed the blonde woman cautiously as he handed over some papers with the latest list of results.

"If you get the chance to join them," Potter said, "I'm sending them into Sector 6, topside outer rim."

He nodded, and followed Elena to the elevator. "Am I in trouble?" he asked, when the doors closed.

"I don't think so," the blonde said to him, "But I'm pretty sure you're not getting fired."

He smirked, "Not even gonna try and make me feel better?"

She shrugged, "If the President is calling you during all of this, it must be important." Elena thought a moment longer before continuing, "Given your performance during the attack and the damage report you had me give to him, I'm certain that you are not in trouble."

When the elevator dinged open, they exited, Elena led Kunsel through the floor which was a flurry activity. An open area, once filled with cubicles, had been hastily converted into a sort of command center. Maps, screens, rosters and reports were being sorted through as rescue and restoration efforts were being managed. They spotted Reeve Tuesti come out of his office, a headset still around his neck, head straight to the main table and join in the fray of organizing hundreds of teams to specialized tasks.

Kunsel was brought into a conference room that had been converted to operate as an office for Rufus. On the way in they passed two of the other Turks. Reno smirked and gave him a wave, by contrast Rude merely gave him a curt nod. As he entered the room, Kunsel removed his helmet, and held it under one arm.

It was clear that at this moment, Rufus ShinRa had little time to deal with ceremony or niceties. He greeted the SOLDIER with a 'come-in' hand gesture, hung up his phone and got straight to the point. "SOLDIER first class Aslan Kunsel, how would you feel about leading SOLDIER?"

Kunsel and Elena stared at Rufus for a few seconds. Then the SOLDIER turned to the blonde Turk standing next to him, an accusatory tone on his lips, "I thought you said I wasn't in trouble."

*******

It was approaching 1800 hours when Reno showed up to the clinic set aside for testing SOLDIERs and troops for the new Jenova strain. It was time for him to escort the Avalanche members back out of the Tower, Rufus was willing to work with them, but he did not want them to have free reign, either.

Today, in order to get her in contact with the SOLDIERs being tested without raising suspicion, Ralena had assisted in gathering their vitals. Kisaragi and Valentine came along too, likely to act as extra support and guard. Kisaragi actually helped with taking vitals while Valentine, predictably, leaned against a nearby wall and kept an eye on things. When he came to check on them bearing the gift of lunch, he noticed a brief glow flash from the man's eyes behind his hair and noted it for later.

At first, Reno only saw Vincent, before he asked where they were, Ralena and Yuffie came out from a changing room, dressed in their usual attire rather than the scrubs they had been wearing before. The Turk grimaced internally. It had undoubtedly been a long day for everyone, but his sister looked almost worse off today than yesterday when she had been climbing around and digging through fallen buildings.

After a few half-hearted greetings, Reno escorted them to the elevator. "Before we leave," Ralena asked quietly while they waited, "Can I go see something in the science department?"

Along with Valentine and Kisaragi, Reno stared at her. Why in Gaea's name would she ever want to go back there? None of them knew what had happened, but they never would have imagined that she would want to return.

"Suuure," Reno said slowly, "It's mostly a wreck at this point anyway. You'll probably like the new look."

When they arrived at the Science Department it was clear that some fighting had happened in here. Papers were scattered, various items were knocked over, and there were occasional claw marks and blood splatters on the walls or furniture. Reno knew from security footage that all the specimens from this floor had been let out in the attack, and several unfortunate lab techs had fallen victim to them as they followed Hojo out.

Vincent and Yuffie exchanged concerned looks as Ralena walked straight through the disarray with a clear destination in mind. When arrived at a door and found it locked, she looked at her brother. "Can you open it?"

Since the attack, Rufus had all of the locks in the science department programmed to allow in the Turks. "Uhh… yeah," Reno answered. Sparing a glance at Vincent, who also looked unsure and concerned. He walked over and pressed his keycard to the reader, a little light turned green and the woman stepped in, followed by the others. Yuffie hung near the door, making sure it stayed open, not daring to risk getting automatically locked in.

Like most of the rooms, it was white, but against the far wall sat a device attached to a large chair with a screen, straps and limb covering arm rests. This room must have been empty when the shit hit the fan, as it still seemed to be orderly and nothing was out of place. They watched as the empath scanned the room as if looking for something. She walked over and grabbed a tall, sturdy looking floor lamp and flipped it over, examining the four metal feet of the stand.

Just as Reno was about to ask what she was doing, she violently smashed the lamp stand against the device, focusing on the housing in front of the chair. On her third strike, one of the feet flew off of the lamp and Vincent barely dodged it in his shock. She paid them no mind, turned the stand and struck the device again and again. Silent rage was on her face and no one said a word as she broke through the housing and paused only long enough to pull it open with her hands to better get at the insides. When the lamp was too bent to be effective she grabbed a nearby stand intended to hold a tablet and continued her assault.

Sparks began to fly and in short order her weapons of choice were so many parts of mangled metal and the machine was in a similar condition. For several seconds the only noise was her heavy, panting breaths. Yuffie flinched at the clang of metal when she dropped the remains of the stand and turned to leave the room.

Alarmed looks were exchanged and no one said anything until they were back in the elevator and the doors were closed. "Uhh… where to next, Ral?" Reno asked, unsure she would even answer him.

She leaned back into Vincent, who immediately responded by putting an arm around her for support. Tired, half-lidded eyes looked to the Turk and she whispered, "Home… I just want to sleep."

Reno nodded, and pushed the button to start them on their way out.

"What was that machine?" Yuffie asked tentatively.

The answer came in a voice that lacked all humor. "Easier to break than a Mako pod." The red head closed her eyes and turned further against Vincent. While normally not one for public displays, the gunman pulled her as close as he could. He had never seen her like that before. Vincent knew Ralena normally worked out frustrations in combat, but this was different. It had required no thought from her. No need to dodge or defend herself, no need to track a moving target, no need to hold back.

Crimson eyes met the blue of the Turk's and he received a subtle nod in response.

*******

As he led Ralena away from the tower, she looked all around her. Her face was a mixture of fear and awe. They reached an alley and Sephiroth put down the duffle bag he had picked up that he had stashed in a utility closet. "There's another change of clothes for you in here." Sephiroth said, "and a few other things you may need."

The girl took off the SOLDIER helmet at his instruction, and looked into the bag, noting the non-descript T-shirt, pants and belt at the top.

Footsteps came from the other end of the alley followed by a voice. "Exactly on time, as expected."

Ralena jumped at the voice, terrified that her escape had been discovered she ducked behind Sephiroth. He looked over her and nodded slightly, Sephiroth's green eyes and calm demeanor told her that everything was alright. "This is Cissnei," he explained once Ralena's eyes dulled. "She helped me set up a place for you. She will take you the rest of the way."

Shock and fear were plain on the young redhead's face. "You're not coming?"

He moved her to sit on a nearby crate and kneeled down in front of her. "I can't hide who I am, if I was with you they would find you again."

"No!" she shook her head violently, "No. I don't want to go if you're not coming!" Her eyes welled with tears and she began to heave great breathes.

He removed his gloves and cupped her hands in his. Trying to comfort her, but the expression on her face was hurting him as much as the wave a despair and denial coming off of the girl. "Ralena…" he said, in a vain attempt to soothe her.

"You're my only friend Sephiroth, I love you!" It was a childlike proclamation, pure and honest. Somehow like a child begging for their parent not to go on a business trip.

He was happy to hear it, even if the moment made it bitter sweet. Out of the side of his vision he saw Cissnei stiffen in surprise at the declaration. Discretion being part of her job, she stepped away, but probably was still within hearing range.

"No one 'just leaves' the ShinRa, Ralena." He squeezed her hands, "Even me. "Maybe someday, but now there is something I still have to finish."

"Your friends?"

He nodded sadly, "There have been sightings…"

"Then I'd rather stay!" she shouted. He hushed her with a gesture. She continued quieter, "I don't want to leave you! I'll live with everything the doctor does!"

"_I_ can't live with that." Not for the first time he felt the dread of impending loss but he quelled it by reminding himself how useless he was in stopping Hojo. Losing her this way was much more tolerable than what he had already gone through with Angeal and Genesis. "You are the only friend that I know I have left, and I would be a terrible one if I kept letting Hojo hurt you."

"Then why not just kill him?" she asked in a strangely innocent manner.

"If only the world was so simple," he said. He had considered it on more than one occasion, but he could not guarantee that he wouldn't face repercussions from the company. Hojo was working on something big for the president, and to interfere with that was courting disaster. The president was ruthless enough to kill Ralena in retaliation if they found out that she was the reason for the professor's assassination. He would have to bring down nearly the whole of ShinRa for the sake of one girl if he went the route of killing Hojo. It likely meant killing some of his fellow SOLDIERs. Men who trusted him, who looked up to him. Men that he was responsible for.

For now, he needed the ShinRa as well. If Angeal and Genesis were still alive he needed the records and the resources. He needed the time. Leaving ShinRa would come soon enough and when he did, he would find her.

"Do you remember where I first took you to see the sunrise?"

"You mean th-"

He held up a hand to silence her and glanced at the back of the dark suit nearby. "If you hear of me leaving, I will meet you there."

"Don’t forget," she demanded, in a strangely threatening manner.

He shook his head, "How could I?"

She dug into the duffle, handing over the one thing they had taken from her room.

He stared at the pale blue plush in his hands. "I can't-"

She shook her head, bitter determination in her eyes, "Because of you, I don’t need Iris to protect me from them."

After one last desperate embrace, where she squeezed him as tight as her muscles allowed, Ralena was led away from the alley by the female Turk. A silver haired shadow following them for as long as he thought he could remain unseen.

*******

After they got back to the airship, Vincent escorted Ralena back to her room, where she promptly sat down on the bunk and leaned back against the wall, exhaling deeply. "You can go check in with the others if you need to."

"Are you sure?" he asked, crouching in front of her, concerned about leaving her alone.

He was too angry, and she was too tired to block out the emotions ebbing off of him in such close proximity. "If you have something else to do it's okay. I think I will fall asleep pretty quick."

Vincent stroked her cheek with the back of his fingers, for the first time he felt guilty about being angry. "If you need anything from me, call." She nodded. He moved to leave her bunk when he stopped, picked up her phone, then moved to plug in the device that was likely low on battery.

She smiled and let out a small laugh, "Taking care of me again."

"Always," he leaned down and kissed her gently, "I'll come check on you later."


End file.
